Chapter Text
Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan had been in a trance for three days. It had gotten to the point that the other members of Clan Lavellan were growing restless, and began looking to Ellana, Deshanna’s granddaughter and First, to take the initiative in assuming leadership.
Ellana ran her fingertip over her precious copy of The Litany of Adralla. It had been seven years since the Knight-Captain of Kirkwall had given it to her. Or, to be more accurate, since he arranged for it to be stolen from his superior’s office and placed in her possession. She was no Andrastian, but she’d read it so many times that she was sure she could recite the whole of it from memory alone. With it, she had been able to keep Clan Lavellan completely free from demonic possession and mind control by blood mages. But if she were totally honest with herself, she would say that she read it because he gave it to her.
He never told her his name.
Sure, she hadn’t told him hers either, but the balance of power was in his favor. Besides, what did it matter? What future was there in Thedas for a Dalish mage and a Templar? Other than capture or death, that is. In the long run, this was the best thing for both of them. He had been wise to walk away. She only wished he hadn’t kissed her goodbye when he thought she was asleep. It had only implanted hope, a longing in her heart that she could not extinguish.
“Ships. Passing in the night,” Ellana whispered to herself. She was pretty sure that was the shemlen expression that applied here. Some things just aren’t meant to be. It was a young girl’s infatuation. Nothing more. She had gotten what she wanted, the position of First. And besides, after everything that happened in Kirkwall, he might not even still be alive.
So why did she feel restless and incomplete? Why, after all this time, could she not stop thinking about him?
Ellana heard her twin brother, and the Keeper’s Second, Evariel, approaching her tent. “Knock knock,” he said.
She hurriedly slipped the tome into her pack. “Who’s there?”
“She’s awake.”
Evariel would have usually gone ahead with a joke, but this was a serious matter. Ellana swallowed hard. There was no small amount of dread forming in her stomach. The Keeper may be awake, and she may yet live, but would she be well?
Ellana scrambled to her feet, slipped on her boots and scurried to her grandmother’s tent, whispering a prayer of thanks to her patron goddess, Mythal, as she did so. Evariel followed at her heels, as usual. He had become accustomed to the role of Second. It was a position both both safe and solid. When the twins burst into the Keeper’s tent, they were greeted by an equally lucid and troubled Deshanna.
“The Dread Wolf spoke to me,” she whispered. She would not have wanted anyone else from the Clan to hear her, as a vision of Fen’Harel was considered a bad omen by most Dalish. Deshanna was wise, however, and took all things as they came. “Something important, something terrible, and something wonderful is going to happen. It all has something to do with the Conclave the shemlen are holding in Haven, in the Frostback Mountains down in Ferelden.”
“What is this Conclave, Keeper?” asked Ellana.
Deshanna gestured for Evariel to come to her side and he helped her get to her feet. “It is a peace summit of sorts. It regards mainly the Rebel Mages and the Chantry. It seems that Divine Justinia seeks to soothe relations between the apostates and the Templars—”
Ellana’s ears pricked a little at the mention of the Templars. Like any Dalish mage, she feared most of them. One of the last pieces of advice her mother had dispensed to her before she disappeared was, “If you see a Templar, don’t fight them, don’t try to reason with them. Run.” But if there was a chance, even the slightest one, that she would see the Knight-Captain again...
“—before they end up killing all of Thedas in their crossfire. However, if my interpretation of my vision is correct, then there is even more at play here. While the politics of the shemlen rarely change anything for our people, the results of this Conclave will reverberate through time, for all people. Nothing will be the same again.”
“That sounds...rather dramatic,” said Evariel. “I want nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t worry, child. I’m not sending you. But you shall have new responsibilities. You shall be First in your sister’s stead during her—absence. ” Ellana was in shock. She had figured on the Keeper sending a hunter spy to observe the proceedings, and that the three of them would then meet to discuss strategy.
She did not expect to be chosen. But Keeper Deshanna extended her hand to her. “Come girl. Do you think I’d trust a hunter to something this important?” The Keeper pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “The Dread Wolf requires my very best. And Thedas deserves no less if it is to survive and change.”
Fen’Harel. The Dread Wolf. The Trickster. Most Dalish both feared and respected Him, but given their druthers would rather avoid His gaze completely. When He spoke, however, the People listened.
Ellana nodded, and wrapped her grandmother in a tight embrace. If nothing in Thedas was to be the same after the Conclave, she would not be either.