The alcove was bluely lit with a large vein of lyrium. A trickle of cold, clear mineral water issued from a rock and made a small pool before vanishing through a crack in another rock. It was as close to pleasant a place as you could find in the Deep Roads outside of the dwarven cities and Cyrill Tabris thought that it would suit well enough. He had no desire to go any further. Given that he had almost expended his rations, he estimated that he'd been down here almost two weeks. Two weeks in which he'd encountered no darkspawn whatsoever. The Calling was not supposed to be like this.

The first part of it had been according to tradition, at least. The Warden in the throes of the Calling was seen off from Orzammar in all honor. For the Hero of Ferelden, the ceremonies were much more grand. The entire royal families of both Orzammar and Ferelden were present, as well as host of dwarves from the noble houses, a fair number of Ferelden nobles, his family, his Wardens and those of his far-flung friends he'd been able to contact.

Zevran had come all the way from Antiva, his usual jocular manner subdued. Shale would not have missed this sign of ultimate fleshy fallibility, but she'd been unwontedly circumspect about it. Leliana had overlooked recent disagreements and had come, in civilian garb rather than her Seeker uniform. It was impossible to know if Sten were even still alive, Wynne was long gone and of course, there was no Morrigan. Cyrill had tried to send to her, through the ring that had never left his finger all these years, but he had no idea if anything had reached her or not. Once or twice over the decades he thought he'd picked up the tiniest hint of her, but that could very well have been imagination fueled by a lot of wishful thinking.

Alistair had been the last to say goodbye to him, there at the very gate to the Deep Roads.

"I'll go with you if you'd like, Cyrill," he'd said softly and Cyrill had no doubt the offer was sincere. It would hardly have been the first time the two of them had faced death together.

"No. You will do nothing of the kind. Ferelden still needs you. Duncan still needs you. And Elissa would never forgive me."

"Maker, but I'm sorry, Cyrill. Sorry that it didn't work."

Avernus' more ethical research had paid off before the decrepit Warden mage had finally died. The Wardens whose lives he had sacrificed for his research might in coming years be balanced by the Wardens who had gained another two to three decades of life from his perfected elixir. Alistair, whose true lineage had granted him some resistance of its own sort, might very well live to a normal old age before he was Called. Or die from a heart attack, from eating all that cheese…

But the potion didn't work on everyone. And it hadn't worked on Cyrill.

"That's what I get for snuggling up to an Archdemon. It's all right, Alistair, I don't mind."

And oddly enough, he didn't. There had been a time when he had feared the Calling above all things, had made plans to end things aboveground, in the light. But when the time had actually come, he'd changed his mind. Whether that was because of the influence of the Taint or not didn't really seem to matter. The end result was that he was able to go willingly.

Those big, armored arms were around him then and Alistair's voice murmured brokenly in his ear, "Maker keep you, brother."

"And you, Alistair." Cyrill squeezed back, then put the king at arm's length and looked up at him with his odd, violet eyes.

"Ferelden has been the better for having you as king. And I have been the better for having you as friend and brother. I love you, Alistair." And he turned on his heel and strode firmly off into the dark as a hero should, without looking back, hearing Alistair's forlorn words echo behind him.

"I love you too, Cyrill."

Then there was only the dark. He had a little light crystal the Circle mages were making and selling these days and it worked well for those times when there weren't lava flows or lyrium veins or phosphorescent growths to light the way. Since there was no way to mark the passage of time, he walked until he was tired, then stopped, sipping a bit of water from his canteen, nibbling on his dwindling store of rations with an increasing lack of interest that frightened him. Sometimes he was able to sleep fitfully.

Despite his faithfully following the siren song of the taint, he'd found no darkspawn to fight. It was possible that he'd simply not gone deep enough yet-since Alistair had joined forces with Bhelen, since he himself had killed the Architect and helped re-take Kal Hirol, since the road between Orzammar and Kal Sharok had been reopened, the major thoroughfares of the Deep Roads were safer than they'd been in centuries. Cyrill had sent regular patrols down and knew that Nathaniel would continue to do the same. It was the best way to train newcomers. Wardens without darkspawn to fight tended to get into other sorts of trouble. Perhaps in time it would be possible to truly take the fight to the darkspawn, to eradicate them in their very lairs. For centuries the dwarves dreamed of such a day, and it was now not so unlikely a dream as it had been.

Cyrill was well off the main thoroughfares now and would have thought that the 'spawn would surely still be in these dark and abandoned passages. But such was not the case. He'd wandered for what he thought must be days without so much as the faintest hint of them. It was beginning to look as if there were to be no glorious death in battle for him, and that was a serious problem, for he was beginning to feel himself fray about the edges, impulses flitting across his mind that could only be called bestial. Even in the dim light of lava flows and lyrium veins, his increasing pallor could be seen. The one time he'd managed to get a look at himself in a still pool of dimly lit water, he'd been shocked. The tell-tale look of bruising about the eyes and the patches in other places were plainly evident.

He'd heard about what had happened to another Commander of the Grey named Larius, from the woman known as the Champion of Kirkwall. A shipwreck in Smuggler's Cove some years back had yielded an interesting haul of oddly assorted adventurers-including a certain Warden deserter. In payment for succor given and no word spoken of her location to anyone, Holly Hawke had told him an interesting tale about an ancient Warden prison in the Vinmark Mountains. Cyrill had never heard of such a thing, but was disinclined to doubt Hawke's word. The most recent First Warden and he were hardly close and seldom corresponded. The First Warden rather hypocritically resented Cyrill's neck-deep involvement in Ferelden politics and undoubtedly wished the Hero of Ferelden had had the good taste to die along with the Archdemon, as a proper Warden should.

It was a frightening and sobering thought, that there might be many more Warden-ghouls down here, some more or less aware. After all, the darkspawn did not attack their own-"The dark ones, they do not see you if you eat of their flesh," poor, pitiful Ruck had said long ago. If you turned before you could find your glorious death in battle, you could conceivably exist as a ghoul for quite a long time, as Larius had done. Hawke's description, not to mention Cyrill's own encounters with Ruck, Adria and other ghouls over the years, made him determined not to add to their numbers, and he felt that time was running out.

When the food is gone, if I've not found any 'spawn, I'll end it myself, he decided.

Now he was down to his last meal and had found this nice alcove. It was almost as if it had been planned. Cyrill laid out his bedroll, filled his canteen with some water from the pool, pulled out the crumbling remains of his trail rations, the bottle of wine and the bottle he intended to follow that one with. He sat to his final dinner in a reflective mood.

No one could say he'd not done his duty. He had deviated from that duty only once, early on, leaving Alistair in a bit of a lurch to search for the one woman he would ever love. He'd found Morrigan, discovered what she intended to do and where she intended to go with their child and had agreed that it would be for the best, the best way to keep the two of them safe. As it was for the best that he remain behind, to aid Alistair and to try to change the shape of the world for his people.

Which he had done. For over two decades, the richest arldom in Ferelden had been ruled, justly and well, by an elf. In seeing what he was capable of, he who had saved them all, the shemlen found it increasingly difficult to justify the repression of his people. And with a King to back him, he had been able to see true change begin. Oh, it would not have come to full fruition in his lifetime, even had he been given his full span. But the seeds were there-the no longer grudging respect he'd been given, Bann Shianni's acceptance in the Landsmeet and the creation of a bannorn for the Highever Alienage as well, the shemlen craftsmen who were beginning to take elves as true apprentices rather than just menial servants, the shemlen children running into and out of the Alienages (whose gates were never lowered now), to play with their friends. In time, the prejudice would become a memory. There were Elven sisters in the Denerim Chantry now, and the new Divine was being remarkably silent upon the fact.

To Cyrill's way of thinking, the dogged adherence to duty, the example he had set that had made all of that possible, was a much greater accomplishment than slaying the Archdemon had been, even if it were not the stuff of legend. He had been able to turn his office over to Nathaniel (for whom the potion had worked as well) with a clear conscience and a sense of accomplishment. The Grey Wardens in Ferelden were well-established now, much stronger and more integrated into the fabric of the nation than they'd been in Duncan's time.

Cyrill rubbed Morrigan's ring once more and smiled. It felt oddly warm on his finger, perhaps from Taint fever. There'd never been anyone else for him after her departure. He chuckled as he remembered Oghren's profound horror at the realization that his Warden-Commander had not greased the bronto or anything similar for years. Never availed himself of a prostitute, nor any of the Alienage girls on his visits to Denerim. There had been plenty eager for the honor of a lay-down with the Hero, but Cyrill had never felt particularly tempted.

Perhaps it was part of the Elven acceptance of authority, but there was next to no adultery in the Alienages. People made the most of what their elders had decided for them, even petulant Eva with her drunk of a husband. And though they had never been formally married, in Cyrill's mind Morrigan was his wife. It was a conceit he had no idea if she shared. She'd always been honest about using sex as a weapon; he could not see her setting such a formidable part of her arsenal aside.

But living like the next thing to a monk had certainly added to his mystique-the preternaturally quiet Hero with no vices. And it had also added to his authority, a necessary thing when governing prejudiced shemlen. There had been days when Cyrill himself couldn't see anything of the Alienage brat with the smart mouth and ready smile in the somber man who stared back at him from his mirror. Only with his closest circle of intimates did he allow himself to unwind and relax, to joke as he had used to.

And they'd been good friends-Alistair and Nate, Sigrun and Oghren, Sten and Shale and Zevran. Leliana and Anders too, though he'd had his differences with them both. Upon meeting Anders again in Hawke's company, Cyrill had neither judged him nor taken him prisoner for his desertion or what he had done in Kirkwall. As someone raised in an Alienage, Cyrill knew only too well the desperation and rage of those society did its best to render powerless. He remembered the notices plastered everywhere in the Alienage all too well:

Any elf found with a sword will die upon it.

Realizing that he was eating the last few crumbs of his rations, Cyrill sighed. Not long now. He'd actually brought a corkscrew with him in his minimalist packing and employed it now, opening the bottle. Good wine was something he'd developed a taste for over the years and a reputation for being something of an expert. Even the Orlesian ambassador had been impressed. And this was a very expensive bottle.

There was no proper goblet, which was rather a shame, but he had figured he'd do well to bring the bottle itself along unbroken. In the blue light of the lyrium it looked purple-black, almost like darkspawn blood. But it didn't taste anything like darkspawn blood and had traveled well, as he discovered with his first mouthful. Lifting the bottle, he made some silent toasts in between sips to absent friends and loved ones.

Father, Mother, I'll be along presently. You'll not wait much longer. Maker keep you, Soros, you and your shemlen wife and all my nieces and nephews. May your children inherit a world that will accept both sides of them. Shianni, there's a case of this wine for you, my next-best-thing to sister. Oh wait, that's right, it's been two weeks. The bottles are already gone! He smiled.

Alistair, you're so much stronger than you realize. Perhaps you'll finally come to know it now that I'm gone. Duncan, you've got big shoes to fill, my honorary nephew, and I'm not talking about your namesake. Zevran, dearest friend, stay nimble! Outlive and outlast them and always watch your back! Leliana, don't let faith blind you to what is right and just. Shale, I hope you'll continue to watch over us squishy flesh creatures. You called me a fine friend once and I return the compliment now.

Nate, you always had my back. Thank you. I go to my rest knowing that I leave the Vigil in the best of hands. Oghren, for all your prowess in battle, the manliest thing you ever did was own up to your responsibilities as a husband and father and I respect you for that. Sigrun, thank you for bringing light into my life when it had become a very dark place.

Dear Misu, are you hunting rabbits in the Fade and will you come when I call? It's the first thing I'll do when I get there.

Adaia, my child whom I've never seen, never held. I apologize for never having been there while you were growing up. I would have liked nothing better, believe it or not as you will.

Morrigan, beloved, the year we had together was the best year of my life, and it was more than enough to carry me through the rest. "Live gloriously," you told me once. I hope I have not disappointed on that account. You also said that we would both come to regret our love, but I never, ever have. I hope that you never did as well.

The bottle was only half empty, but Cyrill had had enough. There was no point in putting things off any longer. He left the chamber and went down the passage a way to relieve himself, then came back and washed up almost ritualistically in the pool. He combed his hair and settled his clothing and took Topsider's Honor and Bloodline off of his back.

For an elf who had begun by being forbidden to carry a sword, he'd held some notable ones in his time. When Mikhail Dryden had taken the star metal and crafted Starfang, Cyrill had had him make the blade for Alistair. He'd not known who Alistair really was then, but he did know that Alistair was the member of their party who held the front line most often and Cyrill had thought it appropriate. The dumbstruck gratitude and happiness of his fellow Warden had made that decision an easy one. Alistair had never cared for his father's blade and the royal sword of Ferelden was now wielded by an ex-Crow assassin.

In the depths of the Deep Roads, Cyrill had found the pieces of an elven blade and had quested to reunite them. In doing so, he'd come to feel a bond with Willem Trailmont, the former owner, another elf who did things he wasn't supposed to do. The blade had also presented questions Cyrill had never found answers for. Willem's name was certainly not Dalish, but what other sort of elf would have a family sword? Much less a sword inscribed:

There must always be another to take up arms against the darkness. That is the core of true family beyond kin and the unifying link that will bring day to night and allow the fallen to rest.

Why had Willem been so adamant about going to the Deep Roads, killing the darkspawn where they lived? It was odd to think of some family of martially inclined elves, with a tradition of training in secret to fight the darkspawn. But Topsider's inscription certainly made it suited to a Grey Warden, and the sword had been in one or the other of Cyrill's hands for a long time. In his right hand with Bloodline against the Broodmother, in his left with the Keening Blade against the Archdemon and in his left with Vigilance against the Architect and the Mother.

Sweet Vigilance, the sword Wade had crafted for him alone, from the ancient dragonbone of the spectral dragon he'd slain. That sword had balanced feather-light in his hand as no other blade ever had. He'd left her with Nate, a wrenching decision that brought home to him as nothing else had the finality of the Calling. She was a young sword and deserved better than to molder down in a dark hole with him. Nate was a bowman and had no use for her, but someone would come along one day whom she would answer to. And in the meantime, he didn't think Willem would begrudge him Topsider, even if that last, glorious battle had never come. Perhaps another warrior would come along some day, find Cyrill's body and take Topsider back into the light once more, to do great deeds before going to his or her rest.

Dinner long since done, Cyrill took up the second bottle, a gift from a friend.

"Do you have something?" Zevran had asked him privately, the night before his departure. "In case the darkspawn are not obliging?" He'd been shocked at Cyrill's appearance, though he'd hidden it well.

Zevran himself had looked marvelous, well and fit, only a few light wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Blond hair hid grey much better than Cyrill's own dark red locks did and if the golden skin had slackened a bit, the muscles beneath were still wiry and strong. Cyrill suspected that Zev was having relations with more than one of the young, adoring male and female bodyguards who had accompanied him. Not for the first time, he'd wondered how things would have played out had he accepted Zevran's advances back in the day. He'd always thought himself a man for women, but he expected Zevran could have made the experience pleasant enough. And he might not have been so lonely for so long…

"A quadruple-strength sleep potion. It should do the trick."

The assassin's winged brows had creased. "You are good at such things, I do not dispute it, mio caro amico. But I am better. Here, take this." He'd presented Cyrill with a dark bottle sealed with an ornate wax seal bearing the royal arms of Antiva over the cork.

"This is Last Sleep. The King of Antiva offers it as a favor to those of his relatives who have been unforgivably difficult, but whom he still has some feeling for. An easy way out rather than public execution or assassination by the Crows. There will be a natural drift into sleep, and pleasant dreams. Sometime later, the heart simply slows and stops. Absolutely no pain. More potent than what you have and more sure."

Cyrill had cocked an eyebrow. "And how exactly do you have access to the King of Antiva's private store of poison?"

"Ah, that would be a tale to tell!"

"We've got a little time yet. And I've not heard one of your stories in years."

So they'd spent a couple of good hours over a couple of good bottles of wine while Zevran told the rather amusing and complicated tale of how he'd acquired the poison. It was touching, the trouble he'd gone to to get Cyrill the vial. There was a fair amount of reminiscence done as well, before the Antivan wished Cyrill good night.

"I am not good at public good-byes, so I will say mine now, old friend. Just this once, could I trouble you for a kiss?"

A pang shot through Cyrill. "I'd love nothing better than to oblige you, Zev, but it wouldn't be safe. The Taint is too far gone in me."

Golden eyes studied him reflectively for a moment. "So I see. Some desires, it seems, are meant to be left eternally unslaked. Is an embrace permissible?"

"More than permissible." And then there was the scent of sandalwood and spice and the feel of Zev's arms about him and the assassin's suspiciously rough-sounding voice in his ear.

"Maker keep you always, Cyrill. I beg you not speak to me tomorrow. I will not be able to bear it."

"I won't then. Goodbye, Zevran." Cyrill squeezed him back, hard, but Zevran broke away suddenly and moved to the door, his back to Cyrill.

"Walk well in the dark, my friend," he said, and was gone.

The seal on the vial, though ornate, in the end was only wax and cracked easily enough. Cyrill popped the cork, studied the vial for a moment, then tossed it down almost casually. Swiftly, he set his little camp in order, gathered his weapons, then laid himself down, his arms folded over sword and axe. Zevran had been right-Last Sleep was potent. The drifting feeling came over him fast, calming him, leaving no time for fear or regret. The darkness came soon after.

And Zevran had been right about the pleasant dreams too. For it had to be the most pleasant dream possible, waking with the scent of thyme and rosemary and pine about him, his nose pressed up against a golden locket he remembered giving the woman he loved, which in turn lay between a very nice pair of breasts he also remembered very well.

"Ah, your eyes are open at last. Mother will be pleased," said a melodic voice Cyrill had never heard before in his life. Disentangling himself somewhat reluctantly from Morrigan's embrace, he pushed himself up and looked about. He was still in his little alcove, but there were packs and bedrolls there and a fire burning that seemingly supported itself without wood or fuel. A young woman smiled amiably at him from across the flames.

She had her mother's raven-wing hair and his own violet eyes and she was…beautiful seemed an inadequate word. Terrible, stunning perfection came closer. Cyrill literally could not tear his eyes from her. Seeing his poleaxed expression, the young woman said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I tend not to do the glamour when I'm with Mother. She raised me and is used to it. Here, is this better, Father?" And suddenly she was simply a very pretty young woman, with a hint of elf in her heart-shaped facial structure and the almost pointed ears.

Cyrill cleared his throat. "Yes. Adaia?"

"Who else?"

He was beginning to think this was a very odd dream. "How did you find me?"

"I didn't find you, I've been steering you. The Taint song you were feeling was me. It seems I still remember some tricks from my former existence. You're actually not deep in the Roads at all-I just made you think that. We're not that far from the surface, which is why you weren't finding any darkspawn. And I can make them avoid us in any event."

"You were…steering me?" He was not sure he liked the sound of that!

Adaia's expression was apologetic. "Yes. I'm sorry, Father, but I couldn't let you go down deep into the Deep Roads. Mother and I needed to be able to get to you. I wouldn't have done it had I any other choice." She dimpled. "I'm really not some demonic creature with a taste for world domination."

He had to smile a little at that, remembering his initial reservations about the ritual. Then he sobered, and met her eyes with his own. "I…I'm sorry, Adaia. Not only for being angry just now, but for leaving you to grow up without me."

His dream-daughter shrugged. "It's all right, Father. Mother explained that you had very much wanted to come with us, but that your duty held you in Ferelden. She told me that you cared about me enough to hunt her down and that it had been her decision to retreat into the eluvian until I was old enough to defend myself. We needed to go places you couldn't follow."

"Are you safe now?"

Her delicate eyebrow lifted. "Do you mean from Grandmother? Yes." She didn't give any further details on that, but said in reference to their earlier conversation, "You don't need to apologize, Father."

"I feel that I should anyway." There was a stirring beside him and Morrigan sat up, looking rumpled and annoyed. She'd aged well, Cyrill noticed, her hair still pitch-black, only the slightest wrinkling at the corners of her eyes, her figure somewhat fuller but still firm. And her hand had not lost any of its strength when she cracked him across the face.

"You stupid, idiot man! What did you think you were doing, poisoning yourself like that? Couldn't you feel me trying to reach you through the ring? Did you think Adaia and I would just let you die?"

He stared at her in growing astonishment. This dream was more and more real by the moment! "I've never been able to feel you through the ring, Morrigan. Well, except for a couple of times. But I always thought that was wishful thinking."

"I told you he couldn't feel you, Mother," Adaia chided. "He's not a mage after all."

Remorsefully, Morrigan's hand reached up to stroke the cheek she'd struck. "Well I could feel you! And I was frantic because I was afraid we'd get to you too late. We very nearly did. I'm sorry to have left you alone for so long. I know that I hurt you." She moved in to kiss him, but he pushed her back. "I'm Tainted, Morrigan."

She snorted. "Your wits are obviously still addled from the poison, Cyrill! It's the most generous explanation. Adaia, the mirror, please." Her daughter obligingly moved over to one of the packs and brought back a very familiar mirror, handing it to Cyrill.

The man in the mirror certainly didn't look Tainted, or a ghoul. It was his normal complexion Cyrill saw. In fact, he looked well rested and perhaps even a bit younger. He gave it back to Adaia, his expression bemused.

"How?"

She smiled. "Mother took care of the poison and I took care of the Taint. What I used was a sort of blood magic, Father. Since you and I are kin, there were things I was able to do for you. It was a kind of correspondence magic, if you understand what that means."

"I'm sorry, but I don't."

"Well, in any event, since it required a kin-bond to work, the cure was only possible for you. I can't fix your Wardens-they'll have to make do with Avernus' work."

"They're not his Wardens any more," Morrigan pointed out. "As far as anyone knows, he's dead. Which means, my love," and she turned her hawkish eyes on Cyrill, "that you no longer have any duty or obligation to Ferelden. And if you can bring yourself to live with that fact, your daughter and I would like you to come with us. We've been preparing your rescue for years."

"My rescue?"

"From the Taint, Father. Ever since I was old enough to know what it was you faced, I've been looking for a way out for you," Adaia said simply. "I didn't want you to die before I had the chance to know you." Cyrill stared at her, confounded.

"I'm beginning to wonder if our efforts have not all been in vain, Adaia," Morrigan remarked dryly, though there was an actual hint of worry in her expression for one who could read her. "Cyrill appears to have little enthusiasm for our idea."

He snapped back to himself. Apparently, this wasn't a dream at all! "'Little enthusiasm'?" A grin he'd not felt in years split Cyrill's face. "You complain of my lack of enthusiasm while kneeling on my bedroll, woman? You're in for it now!" He lunged forward and swept Morrigan into his arms, claiming her mouth. Her hands immediately slid about his neck and twined in the hair at the nape, as had been her habit of old. They fitted together just as well as they always had and it was homecoming, it was completion, it was everything he had dreamed of for over twenty years. She moaned beneath his lips and that sound traveled southward like a shot. He began kissing her in earnest, oblivious to the presence of his daughter.

Who simply smiled fondly, and got to her feet. "I see that you two need some time alone, to get reacquainted. I'll just be down the passage a bit. We can talk later, Father."

Two months later, at Vigil's Keep:

Nathaniel Howe woke in the small hours of the morning, aware that something was wrong. After a few seconds, that awareness clarified itself. There was someone else in his room.

"Hullo, Nate. Took you long enough."

A voice he'd never thought to hear again in life greeted him. Nathaniel shot up in bed, a dagger in each hand. His former commander was sitting at his desk, turned partway towards him, Vigilance laid across his lap.

"Cyrill?"

"The very same. And no, it's not a dream. And no, you can't feel me because I'm not a Warden any more. Where's Sigrun?" A dark red brow arched. Aren't you two still…?" Fingers waggled suggestively.

"Yes, we still are," Nathaniel grumbled. "Not that it's any of your affair. Sigrun's got some new Wardens out on patrol." Getting out of bed, he paced forward slowly, daggers still in hands, staring at Cyrill. His old friend certainly looked much better than the last time he'd seen him. Cyrill's complexion was glowing, with no sign of Taint anywhere and his relaxed, cheerful manner was something Nathaniel had seen on only a few occasions.

"Cute night cap you've got there. Very fetching."

"Sod you. How in the Maker's name did you pull this off?" Nathaniel set his daggers on the desk. His gesture encompassed Cyrill's entire body.

The former Warden-Commander smiled. "My daughter did it."

"The Archdemon?"

"I'll thankyou not to call my daughter that!" Cyrill said, frowning. "Adaia's a very sweet girl."

"Is that a trick she could do again?" Nathaniel himself was resigned to his fate as a Warden; which, admittedly, was less onerous than it had been a decade ago. But he had to ask, for all the future Wardens.

Cyrill shook his head. "The ritual she did was only possible because of our shared blood. I am truly sorry, Nate. But we've got Avernus' research and she promises she'll keep looking into it."

"So she's the one who saved you."

"She and Morrigan."

"And that's why you look like Pounce did after he got locked in the creamery by accident one night!"

The smile that curled Cyrill's lips then was two parts wicked and one part sensual. It startled Nathaniel, who'd never seen the like on his friend's face the whole time he'd known him.

"Yes, that's why."

"Why are you here, besides taunting me for my taste in sleeping fashions? Not that I'm not glad to see you again."

"And I'm very glad to see you, Nate. I came back for Vigilance. It seems I might be needing her after all. I trust you don't mind?"

Nathaniel shrugged. "She was just hanging on the wall. Go ahead-she belongs with her true master."

"Good." Cyrill then passed him a note folded small and sealed with a nondescript blob of sealing wax. "I'd rather the news of my survival be known only to a select few. You can tell Sigrun if you like and I'll see if I can't look up Zevran in my travels. You're going to Denerim for the Landsmeet in a couple of days, aren't you?"

"Yes," Nathaniel sighed.

"Would you pass this on to Alistair for me?"

"Of course."

Nathaniel found himself the recipient of a fond smile.

"You're so much better at this political stuff than I was."

"No, I'm not. Just a tad more patient."

"Sometimes that makes all the difference." Cyrill got to his feet and slung Vigilance over his back. Then he came to Nate and embraced him. Nathaniel hugged him tightly back, reluctant to release the miracle.

"Where will you go, Cyrill? What will you do? Will I be able to contact you?"

"I'll be here and there, doing this and that. And no, not immediately, though perhaps one day I'll be able to work something out. Maker keep you, Nate."

"And you, my friend." Cyrill was heading for the window when something else occurred to Nathaniel.

"Hey! How am I going to explain Vigilance disappearing?"

"Oh. Right. Thanks, I nearly forgot." The former Warden moved back to the desk, pulled a black feather out of his belt pouch and placed it on the desk. Going back to the window, he grinned at Nathaniel as he prepared to climb down.

"Tell them the Crows took her," he said, and was gone.

Four days later. Denerim, the Landsmeet chamber.

Nathaniel had just surreptitiously passed him a note. Nathaniel. Alistair was puzzled-the Warden-Commander, despite his roguish talents, didn't usually indulge in cloak-and-dagger stuff.

He looked down at the tiny, folded parchment. There was nothing particularly distinguishing about either it or the seal. Breaking the seal, he saw that the same could not be said for the interior.

He knew that handwriting and a pang of grief shot through him. Some posthumous charge of Cyrill's? But why had it not been given to him earlier?

Then he read the words.

Dear Alistair-

Thought you should know. The sneaky witch-thief saved me. Again.

Love,

C.

A slow smile started over Alistair's face. He glanced across the table at Nathaniel, who nodded, smiling. Then he grinned. A very un-kingly whoop resounded through the Landsmeet chamber.