such is our calling.

It’s instinctive, beyond any willpower Calpernia could summon, unshakable composure be damned. She wheels around at the sound of that voice, that impossible voice--

But, as it turns out, it is very possible.

Stirling stands there, surrounded by some of the Inquisitor’s inner circle...hands bound by runed shackles. Golden eyes meet her gaze, and there’s exhaustion in those depths the likes of which Calpernia cannot even imagine. Their skin is paler than normal, though whether that is because of their confinement or whatever the Inquisition has done will be for Calpernia to determine when this is over.

Before she consciously acknowledges the action, Calpernia has taken a few steps forward, her voice dropping a pitch with menace, “Release them. Now.”

“No, Calpernia.” The Inquisitor’s face pinches with something like regret, but he stands resolute, his bow strapped across his back. “We have things to discuss.”

Magic tingles at Calpernia’s fingertips, but she cannot unleash it. Stirling is right in their midst, and she is certain it was intentional. They know she will not attack them so long as Stirling is their shield. Fury burns bright across her skin, but she releases a long breath in an effort to regain some of her lost composure. “Speak quickly. I have little patience for you.”

“Calpernia,” Stirling takes a step forward, though, not the Inquisitor, and one of the Inquisitor’s people shifts as though to stop them, but ultimately stays still, “listen to me. When I disappeared, it wasn’t long after Corypheus made another excuse about the shrine of Dumat. I went to investigate, and I found...what I found...”

“It’s a ritual,” the Inquisitor picks up Stirling’s words, but Calpernia barely hears over the roaring of blood in her ears that demands she wrench Stirling from the Inquisition’s hands and obliterate them for whatever they have done. With effort, she refocuses. “Corypheus was keeping your old master, Erasthenes, there. He was testing it.”

“It’s a binding ritual, Calpernia.” Stirling’s face is pained, but Calpernia doesn’t think it’s because of their own exhaustion. It’s something different, something with an echo of sorrow, betrayal. “Corypheus wrote it to bind you once you became the Vessel.”

Calpernia had told Stirling many things about her time as a slave, even the things that haunted her nightmares and waking hours both. She had told them about her master’s deceptively mild nature, hiding the sharp visage of a taskmaster underneath. She had told them about the ways her master had made her feel as though she was no more important than dirt beneath his heel. She had told them of the pain, the scars, he had inflicted on her.

But out of everything Calpernia had told Stirling, she had never told them her master’s name.

To speak a name gave it power, and Calpernia had been determined that she would never give her master any of her own, precious and newly-reclaimed. Nor would she give anyone else the ability to use that power against her.

But the Inquisitor knows the name. Something not even Stirling knows. And it’s that, more than anything, that says he might be telling the truth. Still... “Where I come from, such things require proof.”

For a charged, tense beat, there is silence. Then, three things happen in the blink of an eye--

--Stirling lurches forward, out from the wall of the Inquisitor’s people--

--a scroll slides from their hand in her direction, ostensibly hidden somewhere in their robes--

--and the runed shackles on Stirling’s wrists send a crackle of energy dancing over their skin, ripping a pained cry from their throat.

They fall to hands and knees, breathing deeply, and once again, silence sits. Calpernia’s grip tightens on her staff. “Harm them again,” Calpernia warns the Inquisitor, hoping, praying, that the tremor in her hands is invisible to him, “and no discussion will earn you my mercy.”

“I don’t enjoy this, Calpernia, I really don’t,” the Inquisitor says, strained, uncomfortably shifting his feet, “but to be fair, I didn’t even know they were carrying that scroll.”

In the midst of her rage and terror, there is a flicker of pride. Quashing it for the moment, Calpernia takes the few strides that bring her to the scroll Stirling had been hiding, and unrolls it. What she reads is...confusing, at first. “No one has...written in these runes since...”

Then, it comes together.

There’s a burst of flame, and the scroll turns to ash in her hand; only half aware the flame had been hers, Calpernia viciously paces several steps. “So many promises, and every one a lie! Venhedis kaffan vas!”

She has been a fool. Corypheus had not wished to rebuild Tevinter, he wished to restore it, but the Tevinter Imperium of a thousand years ago no longer exists, and there is nothing left to restore. The only way is forward. Is change. But she has been blind, and now she will make no change at all.

Slowly, rightfully wary of provoking her, the Inquisitor steps forward. “I cannot condone or even forgive the things your Venatori have done in the pursuit of Corypheus’ goals, but I also don’t want to kill you. Or Stirling.” He glances down at where Stirling is still hunched over, on hands and knees. “I want to stop Corypheus, and you want to rebuild Tevinter. Those goals aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Unbelievable. “You mock me. As if you’d let me walk away.”

“I would.” As if to prove his point, the Inquisitor steps to the side, from where he and his people had entered. “And I am.”

“I will not leave without Stirling.” Calpernia straightens. “If you refuse to release them, I will destroy you. Believe that, as you would have me believe your intentions to be sincere.”

One of the Inquisitor’s companions, a woman in a warrior’s armor with short black hair, leans in to say something to him, quieter than Calpernia can hear. With a shake of his head, the Inquisitor makes a gesture in Stirling’s direction. Reluctantly, the woman steps back.

In response, a man with short-cropped silver hair in golden templar plate kneels at Stirling’s side, and produces a key. A few intoned words under the templar’s breath, a twist of the key, and Stirling collapses fully to the ground, freed of their shackles. It takes several seconds for them to slowly push their upper body up from the ground, arms shaking with the effort.

In the end, Stirling manages to stand, though they appear even more drained now than they had before. Shuffling slowly across the space between the Inquisitor’s people and Calpernia’s, they come close to stumbling, and Magister Augustus steps forward to help them the last few steps behind the Venatori’s line. It’s tempting, looking at Stirling now, how they struggle to keep their feet, to destroy the Inquisitor anyway.

And yet it’s because Stirling struggles to keep their feet that Calpernia takes that fury and bottles it up for now. It will be useful later.

“Vitae benefaria, Inquisitor,” she says, leading her Venatori back the way they’d come, “I go now with my people. Do not follow us. Take that well’s power,” she nods towards the Well of Sorrows, “and humble him.”

It’s strange; walking into these Wilds, Calpernia had thought she would be leaving as a vessel for godlike power, serving a master that would aid her in seeing Tevinter rebuilt. Now, she walks free of the temple, towards her main camp, with neither master nor power, godlike or otherwise.

It’s terrifying. It’s freeing.

But she also leaves with Stirling, and that is something she had not dared to even hope for.

It takes no small amount of effort to keep Calpernia from going to support Stirling’s weight herself, but for all the depth of her feelings, she still must keep some things from her Venatori. Stirling’s importance for Calpernia’s goals had been known since the beginning, but it is not for that reason Calpernia had been so desperate to find them. Some of her people must know, or at least suspect, that this is the case.

But she will not openly surrender that piece of herself to anyone. Especially not now, when this day has already cost her so much. Stirling will not be used against her.

So she remains at her place in between two of her spellbinders, walking with a brisk, feigned confidence. If she is not certain of their trajectory--or at least does not appear to be so--neither will her Venatori. “Venatori, strip this camp and be ready to move!”

As her people begin to obey her command, she moves towards Magister Augustus, who has been helping Stirling walk all this time. “It will not be long before the Elder One knows of what has happened here,” he tells her quietly.

“I’m aware.” Calpernia tries to think of somewhere they could retreat where Corypheus will not find or follow them, at least not right away. Somewhere nearby, she amends, looking at where Stirling is slumped against a rocky outcrop, nearly catatonic. “We cannot go far tonight,” she finally states, reluctantly, “not if we wish to regroup and develop a plan for what comes next. But moving our camp even a short distance will earn us time.”

“Do we dare to remain in the Arbor Wilds, or shall we try and leave them? I suppose it depends on how far we can manage to go.”

After a moment’s consideration, Calpernia asks, “You have the map we put together of the Wilds and its nearby regions, yes?”

“I do, but it isn’t complete.” Magister Augustus pulls the rolled-up parchment from his satchel. “We’d anticipated having more time to work on it.”

Holding one end of the parchment with Augustus holding the other, Calpernia runs the fingertips of her free hand over the map’s surface, tracing its too-few locations known to them. She casts another glance at Stirling, who has not moved from their place leaned against the stones. An agitated energy vibrates under her skin. She must remove them from here. She must.

“Here.” Augustus points at an area they’d scouted reasonably well when first arriving in the Arbor Wilds, just at its very edge. “That is likely the only ideal place we can reach tonight.”

“Then that is where we go.” Raising her voice so the rest of her people could hear, Calpernia calls, “Venatori! We march to the northwest; Magister Augustus will guide our path.”

“I can bear the Oracle’s weight as we go,” one of Calpernia’s warriors takes a step closer, casting a brief glance at Stirling, “if that would be of some assistance, my lady.”

“It would.” Calpernia waits until her warrior pulls Stirling up to their feet, then gives them a shoulder to hang off of as they begin to follow where Augustus leads. “Do not fall behind; the Oracle will be needed in the weeks to come, and I will not risk the Inquisition attempting to recapture them.”

“Understood, Magister Calpernia.”

And so, they go. Where, Calpernia isn’t certain yet. But they go, and it feels like a new kind of freedom.

____________________

They walk until nearly midnight before Calpernia finally calls a halt.

After the first two hours, Stirling had fallen--

(unconscious)

--asleep, and so had to be fully carried by the warrior who’d originally been helping them. It only makes Calpernia’s rage burn brighter, but with effort, she takes it, corrals it with the rest of her protective fury, keeps it for fuel that she knows she will likely need.

As her Venatori set up their camp, tents spiraling out from her own in the center, Magister Augustus seeks her out. “Does the Oracle need a healer?” He asks, casting a glance over towards her warrior, who is still carrying the unconscious Stirling.

“No.” Calpernia finally answers, after a moment of thought. “There is nothing to heal. Exhaustion may only be mended with rest.” Turning towards the warrior carrying Stirling, Calpernia orders, “My accommodations are the most secure; have them placed there, that I may question them myself once they regain consciousness.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Do we plan to remain here longer than one night, do you think?” Augustus stands at her side, watching as the warrior disappears into Calpernia’s main chamber tent. “It will be difficult to disguise our presence for long.”

“I suppose that depends on how much strength the Oracle recovers by dawnbreak.” Calpernia forces her gaze away from her secured shelter to meet Augustus’ eyes. “Though I am willing to wager that, at the moment, the Elder One’s priorities will lie with stopping the Inquisitor. That earns us time, though I’m unsure how much.”

“We will be prepared regardless,” Augustus states firmly. “And the leader of your guard force has already gone to set up a perimeter watch.”

“Good.” Calpernia feels a draw towards her shelter, unsure whether it is her own willpower or Stirling’s magic unknowingly tugging at her own. “I am not to be disturbed except in the event of an emergency.”

“Of course.”

Ducking into the main entry of her tents, Calpernia slips into her sleeping quarters, absently removing the outer layers of her robe. Stirling has been placed in the cushioned cot across from hers, their face slack with sleep, pale and lined with exhaustion. Calpernia reaches one hand out to place her palm on their forehead, then removes it and searches for the blanket rolled up at the foot of the cot to toss it over them.

With effort, Calpernia forces herself to pull her hair from its braids before laying in her own bed, but doesn’t bother to comb it, merely ruffling her fingers through the blonde locks. She rests her head on her pillow, closes her eyes, and tries, so very hard, to drift off. If Stirling is capable of speaking to her at all in the next few hours, it will only be through dreams.

Soothing darkness reaches out for her, more quickly than expected, and then--

--Calpernia opens her eyes.

She is not in her tent, but it takes her a beat to recognize where she’s awoken: Redcliffe. The quaint little village where Calpernia had first heard Stirling’s name, blind to the significance it would one day hold for her. There is a lightness to the scene that tells her she is in the Fade, but it also feels too coherent for it to be the simple construction of the average mage, or even the illusion a demon might construct.

And that means--

“It seems strange to think this is the place where it all began,” says a familiar voice, clear and strong in sleep where it had been so thready and faint when awake, “even if neither of us knew it yet.”

And there is Stirling, kneeling at the corner of the docks, just as they had been that day, fingers twisted gently around the stems of spindleweed speckled with rot. Faint green light radiates from their hands, and in moments, the red leaves are pristine again. They rise to their feet, and their golden eyes meet hers.

One moment, she is across the dock. The other, her arms are tight around Stirling’s ribs, and their own tighten around her in turn. Petrichor and embrium waft around her in their familiar scents, and she grips the back of Stirling’s shirt hard enough that she knows her knuckles are white, knows that she must be close to tearing the fabric, but she does not care.

The fear caged in Calpernia’s chest since Stirling’s disappearance catches up with her boundless relief and emerges as anger. Leaning back from the embrace and using both hands to shove at Stirling’s shoulders, she snaps, “What were you thinking? Leaving without a word to pursue something that might have ended with nothing but the Elder One’s wrath brought down on us?”

“On me.”

“I--what?”

“The Elder One’s wrath would have been brought down on me,” Stirling corrects, brow arched. “He couldn’t blame you if you weren’t aware why I left. It wasn’t exactly a secret that there was nothing hidden between us, at least in the Venatori’s goals; I knew about the shrine of Dumat as much as you did. If I left to investigate it, and you were unaware, it could simply have been the fatal curiosity of a rebellious fool.”

“Well, you are certainly that,” Calpernia retorts stiffly, folding her arms tightly over her chest. “You were a fool to think--to think--”

“Perhaps I am a fool,” Stirling agrees, taking a step forward to gently grasp Calpernia’s elbows where her arms remain folded, “but I would have been a fool who didn’t destroy everything you’ve worked for since you were freed. At best, I would find information that would be of aid to you. At worst, I would face the Elder One’s wrath on my own. Either way, you would remain alive. You would remain free.”

“I thought he had killed you,” Calpernia confesses quietly as Stirling’s thumbs rub circles against the joints of her elbows, “before you reached out to me in dreams.” Gaze sharpening at the memory of Stirling being yanked away from her in sleep, she asks, “Stirling, what did the Inquisition--”

“It doesn’t matter,” Stirling tells her firmly. “It doesn’t matter what happened to me there. It’s nothing that I won’t recover from, and I’ve returned to you. That’s all that matters to me.”

A soft silence settles between them for the first time since before Stirling’s disappearance, and Calpernia sinks into it gratefully, closing her eyes, allowing it to wrap around her in its comforting warmth. Here, in the Fade, they are safe in their invisibility. Beyond reach of anything in this realm, beyond reach of anything in the waking realm as well, protected by a shield and a shroud woven by the somniari standing before her, the only person in her life she has allowed herself to trust so fully.

It’s that safety, that shroud, that lets Calpernia open her eyes once more, reach up with one hand to curl her fingers around the back of Stirling’s neck, and pull them down to brush her lips against theirs, the lightest of kisses. “If you ever do something that foolish again,” Calpernia murmurs against their lips, “I will kill you myself.”