The smile on Amaliaâs face was slight, but it was present. Wasnât that just the way of it? The world had a way of punishing anyone for presuming too much. Still, it was⊠good. That he could look upon the scars heâd earned and know they were his for his merit. âYou shouldnât cover them, then,â she said matter-of-factly. âThe marks we bear for our courage and skill are beautiful, and should serve as example to everyone else.â she nodded, as much to herself as to him, and then tipped her head back a little, so that she was looking up into the calm azure of the sky.
âMine are hidden because they are not so. Even if nobody else were to ever know, I would know, and that is enough. I was given them because I was a fool, and I was weak. That man, Marcus⊠they are his doing, most of them. Once, I knew him as Ben-Hassrath. He was viddathari, a convert to the Qun. We take all who wish to comeâand in doing so, there is always risk. But it is rarely something a magisterâs apprentice is willing to undertake, for the danger.â She wondered how many other spies lay in their ranks through similar means, even as she was capable of blending with a human population if this was required of her. One would have to be a much better actor to pretend to be a Qunari, thoughâand he was certainly a superb actor.
âWe are assigned our roles at the age of twelve, and then we are trained for them. I was fifteen, about halfway through my own, when Marcus converted. He hid his magic from the Tamassran, and he was deemed suitable for the same role as I, but even at twenty, he would require training for it. We apprenticed under the same master of the role, and when that was done, we were made partners.â It was commonly-done, really, since there were some situations only male Ben-Hassrath were allowed to handle, and others that only a female could. That they were both anatomically human only made them more suited to working together, as theyâd be appropriate for the same assignments.
âIâd known him for five years when it happened. We were sent on a routine assignment: cross into Tevinter, retrieve a batch of new viddathari, and transport them via ship to Par Vollen. I was given the list of Qunari contacts in Tevinter, and he the information on our planned route. We made it to Seheron before it happened.â Amalia swallowed past a tight lump in her throat. âI trusted him, so when he wanted me to take point, even though it was usually his task, I agreed without questioning it. I didnât even put two and two together when the ambush came from behind, not until all the viddathari were dead and he cast a spell right at me. No⊠not even then. I suppose I didnât realize what was really going on until I woke up in his dungeon.â
Her eyes shifted, as though she were looking at something far in the distance, and she laid them on the horizon dead ahead, her voice dry and almost mechanical in its lack of emotiveness. âIt was like looking upon a different person, to see him then. I was chained to some kind of⊠table, I suppose. I could feel old wounds, untreated, and I was half-dazed with blood loss, and he walked in, right as the rain itself, garbed in magisterâs robes and with a dozen men behind him. He wanted the list I hadâthe Qunari in Tevinter and how to contact them.â She shuddered involuntarily, despite the growing warmth of the day.
âWar had always been just another fact of life for me. It happened, and I played my part in it. It was not until I was a prisoner that I realized I understood nothing of it at all.â Bringing her knees to her chest, Amalia wrapped her arms about them, and her stare descended to the smooth stone surface in front of her.
âYouâd never think so, but healing magic is the most insidious of them all. Marcus had a team of healers, all specialized to repair flesh without dulling pain, to heal the deep tissue but let anything scar on the surface. Iâd chewed halfway through my own tongue before the blood gave me away and they healed it back, as though the effort not to speak was nothing. As though all the times I should have died were nothing. I lost six months of my life to this weakness, this trust I should not have had.â Her bones had been broken, her flesh cut and burned and frozen. Marcus had tested new spells on her. Sheâd come to envy the ones who were outright killed for Tevinter magic, something she still hated about herself.
âSometimes my torture was public. It is difficult to capture Qunari of rank like mineâI was a curiosity. I think the worst of it was the time I was burned at the stake when the mages ate dinner. They almost forgot to heal me quickly enough, so I had thought I might finally die.â And that was really the worst thingâhaving any hope, however pathetic and unworthy, and then having it torn away. Almost as bad but bearable were the eyes on her, completely dispassionate and uncaring for her situation. She was a living, breathing person, but to those people, she had just been another object. Not even the Qun, with its demands against individuality, was so cruel as that.
âI knew that my only chance was to convince them that Iâd died. Qunari prefer to burn their dead when possible, so I knew heâd bury me.â To disrespect her corpse, even. âSo over those months, when I was left alone, I learned to control certain thingsâheart rate, breathing⊠and then I used it to appear dead. I was lucky that they didnât bother to check too thoroughly, and they buried me outside his masterâs estate. Shallowly. I dug myself out, and got back to Par Vollen. My viddathari would never get that chance.â
It was clearly painful for her to speak of this out loud, and Ithilian found it painful to listen to, for the images that appeared in his mind, at the suffering that some men found acceptable and even pleasurable to inflict upon others. Upon her. He wished they had been permitted to kill that man the night before. How he could still live after doing that to another... someone he'd worked with for five years. Some people were truly cold, and truly despicable. And some people said that Amalia was cold, or that she was harsh. Ithilian could see how much she cared. It was written all over her skin.
"I do not think you should be ashamed of your willingness to believe in others," he said, cautiously, as for once she seemed to be in a fragile state before him, and he strongly desired not to do any more harm to her, as he had done before. "Those viddathari didn't get their chance, but you lived through it, and you gave others in this city a chance. You gave me a chance." He wondered how much she knew of what she had truly done for him, how it had merely taken some time for her words to get through, and a little help. It would be unfair to credit her entirely for saving him from himself, when Nostariel had been the one to hit the issue home, quite literally.
"I never intended to return from the Deep Roads," he said quietly. This was his shame, that he had been made to see was so foolish by these two who had humbled him more than the bear, or even the Gods, ever had a chance to. "I came to the city out of grief and a desire for something to focus my anger on, something to have some form of vengeance against. When we saved Lia, I was reminded of everything I had lost... my wife, my daughter, my clan, everything that I had ever lived for. I meant to slaughter darkspawn until I could stand no longer, and then die and selfishly join them again. But you helped me to see that there was more I could live for, and that I was capable of living again. Despite my weakness, my selfishness, my uncontrolled anger and my rampant hate, you still believed there was some good I could do."
He leaned back against the rock, looking out at the sea momentarily, doing his best to control himself. This was so much more difficult now that he cared again, now that he'd given himself something to care about. But if he had nothing to care for, then there was no point in living. "I've tried my best to continue living for those I care about, and even though I made great errors along the way, you still believed in me. I still have trouble thinking that I deserve any such belief, but I try to be worthy of it all the same." He didn't remember the last time he'd felt so strongly about something. It had been so long since he'd been willing to express his thoughts in such a way, and it surprised him how much he wanted to get this out. He wanted so badly for her to understand what she'd done for him.
"I have only ever known one other soul who could make me forget my hate. And it is because of the strength of your belief. If you bear those scars for your belief in others, then I do not think they are anything to be ashamed of." He swallowed, trying to keep his voice from thickening. "I know not how many lives you have saved, but I know that you have surely saved mine."
Her belief in others? She supposed that was their source, in a way, but she had always seen them as proof of her inability to do her duty, to save the viddathari she had been tasked with protecting. She had never given Marcus the information he desired, and she had suffered for it. That she had endured that suffering was the only good aspect to what had happened, and it was that one that had earned her the name. But the Ariqun knew, somehow, that she was not yet past her failure. It was still a shackle, not quite beaten into the armor that protected herâthe armor that seemed to work less and less with each passing day. Marcus had cracked it open, mocked her for her trust in him, for the fact that it was so nearly complete. He wore the color of her people and spoke his flawless Qunlat to her so as to leave scars on her mind as well as her body. And heâd saved her life the night before, holding back the pride demon for long enough to let her get to her feet, long enough for Ithilian to reach it. She was beholden to him, now, in a way. She wanted nothing more than to let him go, to let that entire part of her life fade into painful memory, but it would seem that neither the Qun nor the Magister would allow this.
And yet⊠she slid down the rock to sit immediately beside Ithilian, and she didnât bother asking herself why. She could sense his emotional distress, as great as her own, if for different reasons. Sheâd always presumed that he understood much of loss, and that like her, what he had lost held him back. There had always been that knowledge, that intuition, somewhere in the back of her mind, that they were so much the same. Once, she had thought that this made him more like a Qunari, and sheâd called him like one. Heâd disabused her of that notion, and for a while after, sheâd supposed she must only be mistaken. At last she thought she might understand completelyâhe wasnât like the rest of her people, he was just like her.
She leaned just a fraction, so that their shoulders had a solid contact. âOnce,â she said softly, voice rasping with the trace of a whisper, âI held to the Qun like you held to your hate. It was the only thing that made sense in the world. I was twice-betrayed, and I had failed as well. But the Qun leaves room for redemption. When I was alone for hours I could not count, in the cell or in meditation, the thoughts of old pain would haunt me, and I recited it, to remind me of what I still had. I felt⊠like there was no hope left in the world anymore, but some part of me would not accept the fact that all there was left for me to do was die. I am glad that you found this in yourself, as well.â Glad was such an inadequate word, but it was the only one she had. This was not a language she spoke often.
âBy the time I met you, I was certain that I would never believe in anythingâanyoneâelse again. There would be the Qun, and my place in it, and nothing more. But I⊠I cannot help what I see. I believe in you because there is something strong in you, something I have always hoped I might one day find in myself. There are no absolutes to guide you as I had, and yetâŠâ she shook her head. It wasnât something she could explain. Maybe sheâd never have the words. âBut even when I should have doubted you, I donât think I ever did, really. When you left, I wanted to think you Sparrow, forever fled to easier nesting. When you attacked me in the boyâs dream, I wanted to think you Marcus, who would trample over such small things as my trust for what he wanted. But though the thoughts entered my head, they would not stay. You are not them, and I still believe in you.â
Amalia swallowed, shutting her eyes against the hot sting in the back of them. âYou say I saved you, but you should know that youâve surely done the same for me. I donât have all my answers yet, but believing in you has taught me that believing in people is still possible, that it can end in something good. I might⊠I might yet be able to believe in myself because of that.â She leaned her head back against the stone and snorted softly, something that might have been a laugh if she knew how. âThe Qun slips through my fingers like sand which was once stone, and I donât know whether to thank you for that, or throttle you⊠kadan.â The fact that she was smiling, however sardonically, was evidence enough that the threat was not serious. That last word had slipped out so naturally that she couldnât even be bothered to be surprised by it. If anyone had ever deserved the name, it was surely him.
Ithilian attempted to smile fully, but it appeared as a sort of contorted half grin, and miserably failed to convey how he felt. "Same to you, lethallan." He looked out at the water, and for once, felt at peace.
âMine are hidden because they are not so. Even if nobody else were to ever know, I would know, and that is enough. I was given them because I was a fool, and I was weak. That man, Marcus⊠they are his doing, most of them. Once, I knew him as Ben-Hassrath. He was viddathari, a convert to the Qun. We take all who wish to comeâand in doing so, there is always risk. But it is rarely something a magisterâs apprentice is willing to undertake, for the danger.â She wondered how many other spies lay in their ranks through similar means, even as she was capable of blending with a human population if this was required of her. One would have to be a much better actor to pretend to be a Qunari, thoughâand he was certainly a superb actor.
âWe are assigned our roles at the age of twelve, and then we are trained for them. I was fifteen, about halfway through my own, when Marcus converted. He hid his magic from the Tamassran, and he was deemed suitable for the same role as I, but even at twenty, he would require training for it. We apprenticed under the same master of the role, and when that was done, we were made partners.â It was commonly-done, really, since there were some situations only male Ben-Hassrath were allowed to handle, and others that only a female could. That they were both anatomically human only made them more suited to working together, as theyâd be appropriate for the same assignments.
âIâd known him for five years when it happened. We were sent on a routine assignment: cross into Tevinter, retrieve a batch of new viddathari, and transport them via ship to Par Vollen. I was given the list of Qunari contacts in Tevinter, and he the information on our planned route. We made it to Seheron before it happened.â Amalia swallowed past a tight lump in her throat. âI trusted him, so when he wanted me to take point, even though it was usually his task, I agreed without questioning it. I didnât even put two and two together when the ambush came from behind, not until all the viddathari were dead and he cast a spell right at me. No⊠not even then. I suppose I didnât realize what was really going on until I woke up in his dungeon.â
Her eyes shifted, as though she were looking at something far in the distance, and she laid them on the horizon dead ahead, her voice dry and almost mechanical in its lack of emotiveness. âIt was like looking upon a different person, to see him then. I was chained to some kind of⊠table, I suppose. I could feel old wounds, untreated, and I was half-dazed with blood loss, and he walked in, right as the rain itself, garbed in magisterâs robes and with a dozen men behind him. He wanted the list I hadâthe Qunari in Tevinter and how to contact them.â She shuddered involuntarily, despite the growing warmth of the day.
âWar had always been just another fact of life for me. It happened, and I played my part in it. It was not until I was a prisoner that I realized I understood nothing of it at all.â Bringing her knees to her chest, Amalia wrapped her arms about them, and her stare descended to the smooth stone surface in front of her.
âYouâd never think so, but healing magic is the most insidious of them all. Marcus had a team of healers, all specialized to repair flesh without dulling pain, to heal the deep tissue but let anything scar on the surface. Iâd chewed halfway through my own tongue before the blood gave me away and they healed it back, as though the effort not to speak was nothing. As though all the times I should have died were nothing. I lost six months of my life to this weakness, this trust I should not have had.â Her bones had been broken, her flesh cut and burned and frozen. Marcus had tested new spells on her. Sheâd come to envy the ones who were outright killed for Tevinter magic, something she still hated about herself.
âSometimes my torture was public. It is difficult to capture Qunari of rank like mineâI was a curiosity. I think the worst of it was the time I was burned at the stake when the mages ate dinner. They almost forgot to heal me quickly enough, so I had thought I might finally die.â And that was really the worst thingâhaving any hope, however pathetic and unworthy, and then having it torn away. Almost as bad but bearable were the eyes on her, completely dispassionate and uncaring for her situation. She was a living, breathing person, but to those people, she had just been another object. Not even the Qun, with its demands against individuality, was so cruel as that.
âI knew that my only chance was to convince them that Iâd died. Qunari prefer to burn their dead when possible, so I knew heâd bury me.â To disrespect her corpse, even. âSo over those months, when I was left alone, I learned to control certain thingsâheart rate, breathing⊠and then I used it to appear dead. I was lucky that they didnât bother to check too thoroughly, and they buried me outside his masterâs estate. Shallowly. I dug myself out, and got back to Par Vollen. My viddathari would never get that chance.â
It was clearly painful for her to speak of this out loud, and Ithilian found it painful to listen to, for the images that appeared in his mind, at the suffering that some men found acceptable and even pleasurable to inflict upon others. Upon her. He wished they had been permitted to kill that man the night before. How he could still live after doing that to another... someone he'd worked with for five years. Some people were truly cold, and truly despicable. And some people said that Amalia was cold, or that she was harsh. Ithilian could see how much she cared. It was written all over her skin.
"I do not think you should be ashamed of your willingness to believe in others," he said, cautiously, as for once she seemed to be in a fragile state before him, and he strongly desired not to do any more harm to her, as he had done before. "Those viddathari didn't get their chance, but you lived through it, and you gave others in this city a chance. You gave me a chance." He wondered how much she knew of what she had truly done for him, how it had merely taken some time for her words to get through, and a little help. It would be unfair to credit her entirely for saving him from himself, when Nostariel had been the one to hit the issue home, quite literally.
"I never intended to return from the Deep Roads," he said quietly. This was his shame, that he had been made to see was so foolish by these two who had humbled him more than the bear, or even the Gods, ever had a chance to. "I came to the city out of grief and a desire for something to focus my anger on, something to have some form of vengeance against. When we saved Lia, I was reminded of everything I had lost... my wife, my daughter, my clan, everything that I had ever lived for. I meant to slaughter darkspawn until I could stand no longer, and then die and selfishly join them again. But you helped me to see that there was more I could live for, and that I was capable of living again. Despite my weakness, my selfishness, my uncontrolled anger and my rampant hate, you still believed there was some good I could do."
He leaned back against the rock, looking out at the sea momentarily, doing his best to control himself. This was so much more difficult now that he cared again, now that he'd given himself something to care about. But if he had nothing to care for, then there was no point in living. "I've tried my best to continue living for those I care about, and even though I made great errors along the way, you still believed in me. I still have trouble thinking that I deserve any such belief, but I try to be worthy of it all the same." He didn't remember the last time he'd felt so strongly about something. It had been so long since he'd been willing to express his thoughts in such a way, and it surprised him how much he wanted to get this out. He wanted so badly for her to understand what she'd done for him.
"I have only ever known one other soul who could make me forget my hate. And it is because of the strength of your belief. If you bear those scars for your belief in others, then I do not think they are anything to be ashamed of." He swallowed, trying to keep his voice from thickening. "I know not how many lives you have saved, but I know that you have surely saved mine."
Her belief in others? She supposed that was their source, in a way, but she had always seen them as proof of her inability to do her duty, to save the viddathari she had been tasked with protecting. She had never given Marcus the information he desired, and she had suffered for it. That she had endured that suffering was the only good aspect to what had happened, and it was that one that had earned her the name. But the Ariqun knew, somehow, that she was not yet past her failure. It was still a shackle, not quite beaten into the armor that protected herâthe armor that seemed to work less and less with each passing day. Marcus had cracked it open, mocked her for her trust in him, for the fact that it was so nearly complete. He wore the color of her people and spoke his flawless Qunlat to her so as to leave scars on her mind as well as her body. And heâd saved her life the night before, holding back the pride demon for long enough to let her get to her feet, long enough for Ithilian to reach it. She was beholden to him, now, in a way. She wanted nothing more than to let him go, to let that entire part of her life fade into painful memory, but it would seem that neither the Qun nor the Magister would allow this.
And yet⊠she slid down the rock to sit immediately beside Ithilian, and she didnât bother asking herself why. She could sense his emotional distress, as great as her own, if for different reasons. Sheâd always presumed that he understood much of loss, and that like her, what he had lost held him back. There had always been that knowledge, that intuition, somewhere in the back of her mind, that they were so much the same. Once, she had thought that this made him more like a Qunari, and sheâd called him like one. Heâd disabused her of that notion, and for a while after, sheâd supposed she must only be mistaken. At last she thought she might understand completelyâhe wasnât like the rest of her people, he was just like her.
She leaned just a fraction, so that their shoulders had a solid contact. âOnce,â she said softly, voice rasping with the trace of a whisper, âI held to the Qun like you held to your hate. It was the only thing that made sense in the world. I was twice-betrayed, and I had failed as well. But the Qun leaves room for redemption. When I was alone for hours I could not count, in the cell or in meditation, the thoughts of old pain would haunt me, and I recited it, to remind me of what I still had. I felt⊠like there was no hope left in the world anymore, but some part of me would not accept the fact that all there was left for me to do was die. I am glad that you found this in yourself, as well.â Glad was such an inadequate word, but it was the only one she had. This was not a language she spoke often.
âBy the time I met you, I was certain that I would never believe in anythingâanyoneâelse again. There would be the Qun, and my place in it, and nothing more. But I⊠I cannot help what I see. I believe in you because there is something strong in you, something I have always hoped I might one day find in myself. There are no absolutes to guide you as I had, and yetâŠâ she shook her head. It wasnât something she could explain. Maybe sheâd never have the words. âBut even when I should have doubted you, I donât think I ever did, really. When you left, I wanted to think you Sparrow, forever fled to easier nesting. When you attacked me in the boyâs dream, I wanted to think you Marcus, who would trample over such small things as my trust for what he wanted. But though the thoughts entered my head, they would not stay. You are not them, and I still believe in you.â
Amalia swallowed, shutting her eyes against the hot sting in the back of them. âYou say I saved you, but you should know that youâve surely done the same for me. I donât have all my answers yet, but believing in you has taught me that believing in people is still possible, that it can end in something good. I might⊠I might yet be able to believe in myself because of that.â She leaned her head back against the stone and snorted softly, something that might have been a laugh if she knew how. âThe Qun slips through my fingers like sand which was once stone, and I donât know whether to thank you for that, or throttle you⊠kadan.â The fact that she was smiling, however sardonically, was evidence enough that the threat was not serious. That last word had slipped out so naturally that she couldnât even be bothered to be surprised by it. If anyone had ever deserved the name, it was surely him.
Ithilian attempted to smile fully, but it appeared as a sort of contorted half grin, and miserably failed to convey how he felt. "Same to you, lethallan." He looked out at the water, and for once, felt at peace.
The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Nature of Scars has been completed.