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One of the birds was staring at her.
The ravens were all magically altered--for speed, for intelligence. Leliana had confiscated them years ago from the estate of a bardmaster whose untimely and swift demise she'd arranged, and they were the foundation of her network of informants; they were clever animals, but only animals. And there, between Baronesse Chop-Chop and the Duchesse Fussyfeathers, one of them hopped from foot to foot, doing its very best to imitate the movements of the birds around it.
Morrigan, was her first thought, as she stood from her desk, flexed the chill from her fingers. But even ten years ago, Morrigan would have never given herself away so. The boy Kieran, then. She was too tired to feel more than a dull irritation.
"Child," Leliana said, walking directly to him to crouch in front of the rail where he was perched. "What are you doing?"
Kieran-as-bird squawked, once. He—was not a particularly fast shapechanger. The way the feathers retracted into his body, the way the wing-bones sprouted flesh and fingers. The sounds. Repulsive. Leliana forced herself to keep her eyes on him the entire time. No young mage would ever feel ashamed of their gifts in her presence.
And at least he'd come out of the change entirely clothed. Thank the Maker for small mercies.
"I was hiding," Kieran said, in a harsh, hoarse voice. He shook his head back and forth, then added, in the tones of a normal boy, "From Madame."
—de Fer. Of course. If anyone could make two notorious court rivals sit down and convince them it was truly for the best, for one of them to be seen tutoring the other's son in the magical arts, because the Inquisition could not afford to be split down the middle between apostate and the Circle mage, it was Josephine. "I didn't do my readings," Kieran went on. "I went running."
"I think," Leliana said, and wagged a finger, "that you were spying on me. Do you know what I do with spies, young man?
"Yes," Kieran said gravely.
He looked up at her with wide eyes, and, Maker's breath, she had scared him. Too grave, for a child. Foolish, to assume he was an innocent—to forget he had the soul of an old god in him. To attempt to see any of Alistair in him, when he favored Morrigan so overwhelmingly. "Well," she said--"when very polite and clever spies come to visit me, I give them chocolates, and ask them what lessons are so horrible that they must turn into a bird to escape them."
The rookery was, perhaps, the worst place in Skyhold to work: her agents' incessant comings and goings, the squawking and rustling of the birds, the drafts. It had been well within Leliana's rights as seneschal of the Inquisition (a pretty title to add to her list, which meant whatever they needed it to at any given moment) to lay claim to Josephine's office when they'd found Skyhold, to force every petitioner to walk past the Nightingale. In her month-long fit of self-loathing after Haven (she knew it for what it was, now), she'd chosen the height and the cold.
It served. It added to her legend, at the very least: Sister Leliana, in her tower, watching over all Thedas. And the constant chill in the air meant that when she picked the finely made lock on the bottom drawer of Josephine's desk to steal her dear friend's chocolates, they would not melt.
"I like Madame's lessons," Kieran explained, holding his treat loosely in his hand. "She has so many books. But she's fearsome." He looked down at the chocolate, and took a contemplative bite. "These aren't yours, are they."
"Not at all," Leliana said. "How did you know?"
"I know," said the boy, as though it was all that mattered.
A useful skill, she thought, and on the heels of it, Even a solemn and perceptive child is a child, Nightingale, control yourself.
Someone came stomping up the steps from the library at that very moment, and Leliana stood, clasping her hands behind her back, but it was just Morrigan, and no one she needed to impress. Kieran waved, with sticky fingers. "I was visiting your friend, Mother," he said, the picture of innocence. Leliana's best agents could not have faked it better. "She's given me chocolates."
"Friend," Morrigan said. "I heard a mad tale from a First Enchanter of our acquaintance, Leliana, my friend—a student of hers did not read his assigned theory, and changed into a bird to escape her chastisement."
Leliana stepped in front of Kieran, so that his skinny form was hidden behind her tabard. "I see no one here but you, I, and Baronesse Chop-Chop," she said, voice pitched so the raven in question would come perch on her arm. "Baronesse, have you seen anyone? No?"
"Kieran," said Morrigan.
"I've never heard of such a person." Leliana stroked the Baronesse's head with a single finger. "Is he very tall?" A muffled giggle, from behind her.
Leliana had seen Morrigan starving, filthy, exhausted, terrified, blood-spattered, enraged. So long ago—two, three lives ago. She had never seen her fond. Never seen that particular, indulgent curve of her smile. "One hour, Kieran," Morrigan said. "And then you must return to Madame Vivienne. Do you promise?"
"I do promise," Kieran said, when Leliana stepped aside to reveal him.
Morrigan inclined her head. Kieran inclined his in response. The rituals of family—wholly foreign to Leliana. Morrigan left them alone, and Leliana turned to find Kieran looking expectantly up at her. He did plan to stay the entire hour in the rookery. Very well. She needed a break from the work. What did she know of him? He was hungry for knowledge. "If you must know," she said. "I stole these from Ambassador Montilyet. She guards them jealously. Would you like to learn to pick a lock, boy?"
*
Kieran was a voracious learner, and he exhausted the entirety of Leliana's knowledge of locks within a month. Leliana called in Sera—a true criminal—to complete his training. Sera, who had rarely in her brief life been entrusted with anything more important than a simple murder or burglary, took to the task as a Nevarran took to a corpse.
She was not an ideal influence for a young person.
It was good, that Morrigan almost never took it upon herself to attend war table meetings; in retaliation for turning her son into a hellion, she took every opportunity to tell their fellow advisors stories of the Blight. Horrible stories. Stories of Leliana ruining expensive boots stepping in bronto shit, or breaking into song at inappropriate moments, complete with high-pitched imitations of her voice. She flirted savagely with Cullen, who never retaliated—some solemn vow to Josie, most likely, to behave himself around the Chasind apostate. And Josie, for her part, pretended at keeping the peace, while goading Morrigan into telling more stories.
Leliana could not find it in herself to be angry with either of them. Josie had never outright asked Leliana about her time with the hero of Ferelden. Nor had she met any of Leliana's companions from that time—except Zevran, who'd made the journey to Skyhold once, and managed to proposition Josephine five different ways in the space of five minutes. He'd slowed down in his old age. Josephine had accepted the flirtation as her due, from an Antivan man.
And Morrigan—Morrigan never told the truly dreadful stories. How Leliana, sick with horror, had cried into (of all people) Sten's arms after their encounter with the broodmother. How they had run out of coin for food halfway between Denerim and Redcliffe, and how Leliana and the Warden, who was not so long out of shaking down shop owners in Dust Town, had robbed an unsuspecting group of bandits. How badly the robbery had gone. The things they had done in the war.
But she went too far, today.
"'And in the garden,'" Morrigan said, in her dreadful Orlesian accent, "'on the blackened bush, which had never bloomed—a single—red—rose—bright, in the middle of such devastation. You are the rose I saw, Warden. The Maker sent you.' And I suppose, as she was already traveling with an apostate, a dog, and Alistair, and I list us in order of how good we were at conversation, the Warden thought, ah, what's one more?"
Josie raised her hand to her mouth to hide her pretty laugh, and even Cullen (who spent most of his time in Morrigan's presence visibly wishing he was elsewhere) cracked a smile.
"Too far," Leliana said, once they were alone.
"Whatever could you mean?" Morrigan said.
"You would make me a laughingstock."
"The templar is too frightened of you to ever find you ridiculous, and Lady Josephine loves you too, too dearly." At that, a hundred responses rose to Leliana's tongue, all of them vicious. She said nothing. Morrigan sat on the edge of the war table, rumpling Josie's immaculate map, and stroked her chin, mocking: "Well, well, what has you so on edge, Nightingale? Why, 'tis the anniversary of—I think we both know."
"What?" Leliana said, impatient. "Don't leave me in suspense, Morrigan."
And then she remembered: eleven years ago to this day, they had watched an archdemon fall on Fort Drakon. The golems had stood still, waiting for their next command. The Circle mages, unaccustomed to open air, let alone open battle, had huddled in a small knot, as far away from the darkspawn corpses as they could manage. Morrigan had eased Leliana's shoulder back into its socket; Sten had waded into the beast's innards, puddled on the stones, to retrieve the Warden.
And the Warden had been alive.
"You forgot," Morrigan breathed. "A sentimentalist like you."
"I have been busy," said Leliana. At Morrigan's look of disbelief—surely, her memories of that day had faded, too—Leliana managed a scoff. "I couldn't have imagined a time when Fort Drakon would not be the defining trauma of my life, and yet, here we are."
"The Conclave. You lost a mother." Now Morrigan had the nerve to look sympathetic. She wore it well—she'd grown into her features, the sharp, straight nose, the doe-eyes. No wonder Morrigan had gotten whatever she wished at Court. Celene had always loved to surround herself with beautiful women. It made it all the more infuriating, that she thought she could con Leliana into thinking she cared.
If this was the game Morrigan wished to play, oh, Leliana would play. "And I did not even have to ask my friends to kill her," she said mildly. "I lost her all on my own."
The wave of force hit her like a hand flat against her chest, and Leliana stumbled back a step: nothing but a warning tap, from a mage of Morrigan's caliber. In a physical fight, there would be no question of the winner—
Morrigan laughed and slid off the edge of the war table. "Isn't this a reversal—me, trying to make peace. You, lashing out. Come with me, Nightingale. I've something to show you."
*
They went to the Eluvian.
"It will be disconcerting, at first," Morrigan attempted to warn, once she'd activated the mirror. Leliana stepped through it before she could finish her sentence.
She—had not known what she'd been expecting. She had read the Inquisitor's report on what the mirror-realm was like, but mere words on parchment had not prepared her for the way it felt on her skin. The air she breathed, which some part of her knew instinctively was not air. She held her gloved hand in front of her face, and it swam in her vision, then reformed. There were dark mirrors as far as her eye could see, grouped at random, if they were grouped at all.
"Maker's breath," Leliana said. No wonder Kieran had turned out the way he had, raised half-in and half-out of this place.
Morrigan's hand on her shoulder, anchoring her. "I tried to warn you," she said. "Come."
Leliana followed. There was nothing else to be done, save turn back. The mirror Morrigan led her to was different from the rest; it gave off no malevolence—no feeling of emptiness—as they approached it. Morrigan waved a hand, and the flat surface resolved into an image of a building with a low wall surrounding it, a muddy courtyard, a sunburst in faded paint above the thick wooden doors. Some piddling village Chantry.
"'Tis not to be stepped through," Morrigan said, "a looking-glass, in the truest sense of the word. This one sees into the Fade, if one can ever have a true vision of the Fade."
Leliana peered closer, and... she knew the wall, the crooked arm of the sunburst. "This is the Lothering Chantry," she said, reaching out to touch the glass. As though she could step through, and become the lay sister once more.
"It is a memory of the Chantry you knew," said Morrigan. "Nothing more, nothing less. The new Chantry was larger—grander. Triumphal."
The people of Lothering had tried to rebuild their town, and they had failed. Bad harvests, poisoned water. This was the most Morrigan had ever spoken of the past nine years. (Certainly, Leliana did not make a habit of disclosing what she'd done in the three before Justinia had taken the Sunburst Throne.) "You went back when you were with child," she said.
"No one asked questions. I was a widow, or a camp follower carrying a soldier's bastard, or a runaway farmgirl. They needed all hands, so soon after a war."
A gap in the story: if those hands should happen to wield a mage's staff, and know how to dispatch groups of darkspawn, so much the better. "Your point?" Leliana said, watching the shadows on the shadow-Chantry wall move.
Morrigan spoke now in her most overbearingly enigmatic voice: "And as I wandered the Fade at night, I came across not demons, no, but a sole spirit of Faith, wandering the halls of its lost Chantry, wondering where all its beloved dreamers had gone."
Leliana felt her stomach turn.
"And it spoke to me of one dreamer it loved above all others, whose faith was so strong—"
"You spin a pretty story," said Leliana, just to say something, to make Morrigan stop. "Perhaps you should have been the bard, and not me."
"My singing voice isn't nearly as good. They'd have to call me the Raven, for my croaking." Morrigan waved her hand in front of the mirror, and showed Leliana the hall (the memories of the hall) where the lay sisters had slept. And continued, as though Leliana had not spoken at all, "And the spirit saw the black stain spreading across Thedas, and saw the dreamer's love of the Maker, and thought, in the slow way spirits think—such strength. I can make it my instrument."
A flickering brightness, in the middle of the hall. Why should it take human form, when there were no longer humans to imitate? It was gone as swiftly as it appeared. Leliana knew it for what it was: the spirit of which Morrigan spoke.
She turned and walked directly out of the mirror. Morrigan was not behind her. It was just as well. She was too old, for tears to well up in her eyes at the thought of the peace she'd known in Lothering—the only peace, it seemed, she would know in this lifetime—and she pressed her fists into them like a child. It was two, three lives ago. She no longer had the time, or the energy, or the right to grieve.
"Why tell me this?" Leliana said, at the sound of Morrigan's footfalls on the stone. She did not turn to look; she did not trust her face to do what she wished it to yet.
"I thought it might make amends," Morrigan said simply. "That it might be a comfort to know that even if your Maker is silent, something beyond yourself loved you enough to speak to you. I misunderstood." And then she approached, and handed Leliana a handkerchief, of all things. "We were never close—in those days."
"If this is how you make your overtures of friendship," Leliana muttered, dabbing at her cheeks, "I should hate to see how you go about making enemies."
"Oh? I suppose I should stare at your breasts, and describe in great detail how I should dress you to my satisfaction."
Dark red velvet, with gold embroidery—cut low in the front, of course. We wouldn't want to hide your features. Something to that effect. She turned, and Morrigan held her hand out for her handkerchief. "I'm sure I thought I was flirting," Leliana said. "The beautiful apostate, raised in the harsh Wilds by a witch of legend, hardly civilized, occasionally clothed. What a romantic figure! And then you opened your mouth."
Her voice wobbled, on those last words. It was as though someone had taken a lathe to the inside of Leliana's chest and scoured her out. Tentatively, carefully, Morrigan ran a hand up her arm. Even after seeing her with her son, Leliana had not been able to reconcile the angry girl she'd known with the self-serving—yes—conniving—dreadfully—gentle woman before her.
She could, now.
"Come along," Morrigan said. "Show me what you've been teaching my son. Skyhold's food delivery came today, and your ambassador will have appropriated half the sweets for herself by now. And"—her arm curved around Leliana's waist, squeezed, then let her go before Leliana could either protest or assent—"you might elaborate on how romantic you found me."
"For a start, I am far wiser now than I was then," said Leliana, "and I would never put you in velvet. Silks, only. We will need to stop by the rookery to get my tools."
"Lead the way, Nightingale," Morrigan said, a hand on Leliana's lower back, steering her away from the Eluvian. A needless gesture—a reassuring one. As though Leliana required it. As though either of them could look at what it promised, and not be burnt.