Estella tried to relax, knowing that she was causing her poor horse a fair amount of discomfort, riding as stiffly as she was. Still, it was difficult, when everything seemed so⊠on edge. The Lions rode with an edge of anxiety, or at least the younger ones did. Havard projected the same cool detachment he always did, though she like the rest of them knew that was partly just a front. Corâs eyes wouldnât stop flicking over the landscape, as though permanently on watch for Coterie men to pop out of the sparse brush. Donnellyâs breathing was so regular she knew he was concentrating on it, though his free hand rested uncertainly on the pommel of his sword.
This wasnât like other jobs theyâd been on before, and they could feel it. There were people involved in this that they knew personally, people they cared about. Sophia was around the barracks a lot, and so many of them considered her, if not precisely a friend, then at least a friendly face. And none of them could mistake how much she meant to their commander, even if he wasnât the most demonstrative man in the world. But more than that⊠Tessa and Lia both were still out there somewhere, and not knowing where they were, or if they were even still alive⊠that was difficult on all of them.
The weirdest part of the whole thing, to her at least, was that she couldnât read Lucienâs face. He rode with the kind of expert ease he always had, being trained to cavalry and all, but that was just automatic, and she knew it told her nothing. That even sheâwho had learned to read the subtle nuances of Rilienâs visageâcouldnât begin to guess at his thoughts, disturbed her. She didnât know if he trusted Quinn at all, she didnât know if he thought, with the Guard Captain, that this was a trap he had to spring, or something else entirely. She couldnât even tell if he was upset, though he had to be, didnât he? It was making her uneasy, in a completely different way from the rest of it. He was always so⊠warm, but looking at him now made her feel chilled somehow.
So she focused on her friends, riding close to Cor, Donnelly the outriding flank guard on her other side, and she tried to keep herself as still and level as she imagined Rilien would be in this situation. Calm, composed, controlled. That would be more effective, more likely to help, than any amount of worry or fretting. It wasnât easy, but sheâd had the best to learn from.
Theyâd been riding for a while when they reached a small crossroads, one stirred up by a churning mixture of hoofprints, footprints, arrowheads, and blood, strewn over the sand like some macabre afterimage of death. Seeing it reminded her of too many things, and she swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise in her throat. This⊠clearly, a battle had taken place here, a desperate one at that. She tried not to imagine her friends as part of it, because it was hard to look at all the blood and believe they had survived. That anyone had survived.
Dark blue eyes flickered from Cor, whose jaw was so tight a muscle in it jumped, to Donnelly, slightly green, and then to Lucien, whose face was just as stony as it had been the whole ride.
Ashton was less guarded with his emotions, as a grimace worked itself into his face, but he did not speak his thoughts. There had been a fight, that much was clear and he'd expect nothing less from Sophia, Tessa, and Lia. However, none of them had any idea where they were at, save for Quinn, and Ashton was not about to begin trusting the man now. Still, they had no choice in the matter but to believe the man knew that the were safe and could lead them to where they were kept. It was not a pleasant state of affairs, to put mildly. Ashton spared a glance at Lucien before returning his gaze back to Quinn.
There were no bodies.
This was the detail that Nostariel chose to fix in her mind. No bodies meant that someone had survived this, perhaps many someones. It did not bode well in the long runâthose she knew were not the type to bury others in shallow graves or dispose of them in the ocean, and the fact that her horse could even now be treading on such a burial site was disconcerting, to say the least. But if she knew someone had survived, she would believe that Sophia and the others were among them until she had no choice but to acknowledge otherwise.
âWhere to from here?â She directed her question to Serah Quinn, as he was the only one who knew where they were supposed to be headed.
Dairren's face was not an easy one to read, clearly being someone that had some experience in concealing his emotions, and his eyes held a nearly permanently hard look to them. They looked now not to the ground and the evidence of the battle that had occurred, but rather to the surroundings, which appeared to concern him more. He brought his horse to a halt, and smoothly dismounted, his earlier injury appearing not to bother him overmuch.
"It's not far now. Leave the horses here, we go on foot." He made a hooking gesture of his right hand, indicating the desired direction. "We should swing wide along this road, to avoid possible sentries. Just in case, have your weapons ready, and stay silent from here on out." To aid those with heavier armor, Estella suggested tying fabric around and between some of the noisier joints, and quickly sacrificed a cloak for the process, which was completed in efficient silence. The resulting lack of metal-on-metal chinking, however soft, was a relief.
Dairren led them into the hills, following the road for only a short period of time. The group moved as quietly as they could, though some were more adept at this than others. Dairren was swift in his assessments of the land, stopping for only as long as he deemed necessary to properly scout out the land ahead, and confirm that no enemies lay in wait for them. Though he wielded a hand and a half sword at the moment, a number of smaller blades could be seen sheathed, from short swords down to smaller knives, previously concealed under his hooded cloak, which he no longer wore. His face was lined with age, but still his step was sure and strong.
It was about the moment when it began to seem like he was leading them nowhere that he held up his fist and indicated that the group should come to a full stop. "It's just ahead. Move softly, follow my lead." Moving out from behind the rock he'd stopped at, he descended a small rise and approached what appeared from behind to be a relatively average rock formation. After shoving aside some overgrown bushes, however, he revealed a doorway in the rock, visible slits carving out a roughly man-sized hole.
"The magister who lorded over this place, long ago," he explained, pushing aside another bush and feeling across the face of the rock with his hand, "had an entrance of his own installed, so he might come and go without the slaves seeing him, I imagine. I discovered it in the earliest weeks of my flight from Kirkwall, over a decade ago." After searching a moment more, his hand settled on a subtly hidden handle in the rock, which he closed his fingers around, twisted, and pulled.
With a surprising lack of noise, the rock barring their path sank into the earth, opening up a passageway. No light came from within, but a torch could be seen set into the wall. Taking it from the sconce, he held the end of it out to Nostariel. "If you would, Warden..." Nostariel nodded, flicking her hand in a sharp motion that produced a flame over her palm. Holding it to the end of the torch, she passed it back and forth a few times, until there was a healthy flame going, and then snuffed hers out by closing her fingers over it. With a slight smile and a silent nod, she stepped back, knowing sheâd be better at the middle or back of the group rather than in the front.
"The other end is barred as well," Dairren explained, leading the way into the tunnel. "They'll not see us approach." The hall was only wide enough for one at a time to fit in, and with decent spacing between each member, they one by one filed inside, leaving the doorway open behind them. The sound inside seemed to echo more strongly off the walls, every little clink of armor that was not suppressed sounding twice as loud as before, though Quinn was quick to assure them that they would not be heard from the other side.
Eventually, the tunnel came to a sharp ninety degree turn right, and her Dairren stopped, finding what appeared to be a small peephole in the wall, allowing him vision of the room on the other side. "The most likely place they would choose to keep prisoners would be... here. The room's empty." He frowned, the pause his first since arriving in front of the mercenary headquarters. His stony visage threatened to break for only the briefest of moments, however, as he looked back to Lucien, the second in line.
"We'll have to search room by room. This door will open into a sort of back rooms, offices and sleeping areas of the management. It's the logical place they would keep prisoners. Any Coterie we encounter must be dealt with quickly, and quietly." With that, he quickly located and pulled another handle, and a door that was previously invisible to them once again opened with a surprising lack of sound, allowing them to file into the empty room. Two support beams were all that stood before them, the room otherwise bare, save for many light footprints in the dirt.
Lucien said nothing, his eyes falling half-lidded for a moment before he nodded. He turned over his shoulder, casting a look to the others. âMind your steps, and look out for each other.â Of course, he hardly thought Ashton and Nostariel needed such basic advice, but he was not oblivious to the unease in his Lions, and he knew that they needed to hear him sounding calm and confident, whether he felt that way or not. They were also smart enough to know that this was probably a trap, and that he was springing it on purpose. Now, though, he was beginning to see more dimensions to it, including that not everything was as Quinn had planned for it to be. How that worked out for them was as yet undetermined, but he wasnât planning for anything in particular.
"They were here," Ashton noted aloud. He knelt beside one of the support beams, examining the dirt around it. Someone had been there, judging by the dirt's displacement. However, it wasn't the dirt that told him that either Sophia or Lia had been there. Plucking something off of the splinters of the beam, Ashton turned around and showed everyone what he'd found. A long golden blonde strand of hair. "Recently, though why did they move them, I wonder?" he said, letting the hair slip through his fingers before standing again, gripping his bow with both hands. "Let's go, the quicker the better."
Dairren did not seem to find the finding of a hair interesting, sparing it only a single glance, instead moving to the edge of the open doorway to ensure that no one outside had heard the words just spoken. After a brief, tense moment, he gave the signal to follow him out into the hall beyond. Torches periodically dotted the walls, allowing Dairren to drop his own, and they cautiously peered into the other nearby rooms, finding nothing. There were only three on each side in this particular wing, all with their doors open, and all devoid of anyone, hostage or Coterie. It left them with little choice but to proceed down the hall and closer to the center of the mine's upper level.
"I don't like this," Quinn admitted, as he neared a corner. Coming to a stop, he placed his back against the wall. "Up ahead is the mouth of the cave, the main... entrance. Shit." He had peered around the corner with one eye, and clearly did not like what he saw. Turning back to look at this others, his mouth was set into a hard line, his mood clearly having turned fouler than before.
"They have her up ahead. I saw her. They're... waiting for us. I don't know how they knew about the other entrance." Dairren's expression was not one of panic, but his frustration was clearly evident by now. "We'll have to speak to them, then. We can't risk a fight, not now."
Before anyone could respond to them, however, a woman's voice called clearly from beyond, from the main room of the cave. "There's no point hiding anymore! You have no more plays, Quill, and no routes of retreat." And before Dairren could so much as curse in anger, another voice sounded out from behind them, a man's, likely just having emerged from the tunnel they entered from.
"You're cut off, Lions. Stand down, or the lady gets her throat opened." Slowly, he entered the hallway behind them, in cover behind a tower shield, and more Coterie men followed in his wake. They made no move to attack, but remained defensive. "Go," the one in the lead said. "Don't even need to drop your weapons yet if you don't like. But get out in the main room. Lady Threnhold wants to speak. No one else needs to die."
Threnhold. Nostariel remembered that name from years ago. And a faceâa lovely fair woman with dark hair. A noble, so what was she doing with the Coterie? But though the thought seemed incongruous, when the group moved into the larger chamber of the complex, she was indeed present. Dressed less finely than she had been at Sophiaâs birthday party of course, but unmistakably the same woman. Nostariel looked next to Sophia, who was standing somewhat in front of Miranda. Armorless, bound at her wrists and ankles. She looked a bit scraped up, but Nostariel supposed this was likely to be the result of the fight that had resulted in her capture rather than anything since. There was no trace of Tessa or Lia to be seen.
Miranda held Sophia by the shoulder with one hand, the other clutching an elegantly crafted knife. Sophia was gagged once again and thus prevented from speaking. The two were situated on an elevated wooden platform that spanned much of the room's right and far wall, accompanied by over a dozen Coterie archers, with bows poised on the approaching group. The criminals that had flanked them continued to press them forward from behind, while at least twenty five more awaited them on the ground level ahead.
"Glad to see that sense could prevail," Miranda stated, smiling. "If all goes well, Sophia will be released from this place shortly. The rest of you will have to stay for some time, sadly, but arrangements for your releases will be made as well, down the line. This is truly nothing personal, merely a step I needed to take, before the opportunity was gone to me forever."
Dairren seemed to be only half hearing her, his eyes locked on Sophia. He looked pained, still confused, and angered. Sophia still clearly bore the weight of what had happened earlier, and now the rippling effects of her capture. It had led to the subsequent capture of many of her closest friends. And now, with Quinn right before her, she found herself more concerned for the others. Her original purpose in all of this no longer seemed to matter.
"Lay down your weapons," Miranda commanded. "The men will escort you... to your chambers, so to speak."
Lucien initially made no move to divest himself of his armament. âWhere are my scouts?â He inquired softly, his voice on an even lower register than usual, probably not intentionally, though it did match the narrow cast of his eyes and the tightened way he held himself in place. He didnât look directly at Sophia, but rather squarely over her shoulder at Miranda.
"She was instructed to come alone, if you'll recall. The scouts are dead."
"There's no way this'll work," Ashton said slowly, but angrily. "You've got the Commander of the Lions, the Guard Captain, and a Grey Warden. There's only one way this works out for you," Ashton said. However, the grip he had on his bow loosened before he threw it onto the ground, followed by his quiver. "Badly. I'll see your pretty little neck in a noose before all is said and done," Ashton said, raising his hands to his head so that the Coterie could take his other weapons.
A fist was the first thing to reach him, clocking him in the side of the temple. Ashton's head snapped viciously to the side, before whipping back and staring at the man intently. A trickle of blood fell from the side of his head. He'd remember that face yet.
The Lions, particularly the younger ones, looked stricken at the news about their comrades, but Lucien himself said nothing, and reached up to unbuckle the thick leather band holding Everburn to his back. He lowered it to the ground with care, then took the knife out of his boot as well. That was all the weapons he had on him, but he stood stiffly while a few members of the Coterie patted him down as well. Behind him, his mercs took their cue and did the same, though Cor may have accidentally stomped on a toe with his heavy boots. It earned him a warning look from his Commander, and he looked down, face set into a scowl.
It wasnât until he was being led away that he dared meet eyes with Sophia, and something in his stony expression shifted as he focused on her. âWhatever she wants, donât give it to her. Trust us to fix this.â Perhaps rather bold words, from a man being led to captivity, but he seemed certain of them.
This wasnât like other jobs theyâd been on before, and they could feel it. There were people involved in this that they knew personally, people they cared about. Sophia was around the barracks a lot, and so many of them considered her, if not precisely a friend, then at least a friendly face. And none of them could mistake how much she meant to their commander, even if he wasnât the most demonstrative man in the world. But more than that⊠Tessa and Lia both were still out there somewhere, and not knowing where they were, or if they were even still alive⊠that was difficult on all of them.
The weirdest part of the whole thing, to her at least, was that she couldnât read Lucienâs face. He rode with the kind of expert ease he always had, being trained to cavalry and all, but that was just automatic, and she knew it told her nothing. That even sheâwho had learned to read the subtle nuances of Rilienâs visageâcouldnât begin to guess at his thoughts, disturbed her. She didnât know if he trusted Quinn at all, she didnât know if he thought, with the Guard Captain, that this was a trap he had to spring, or something else entirely. She couldnât even tell if he was upset, though he had to be, didnât he? It was making her uneasy, in a completely different way from the rest of it. He was always so⊠warm, but looking at him now made her feel chilled somehow.
So she focused on her friends, riding close to Cor, Donnelly the outriding flank guard on her other side, and she tried to keep herself as still and level as she imagined Rilien would be in this situation. Calm, composed, controlled. That would be more effective, more likely to help, than any amount of worry or fretting. It wasnât easy, but sheâd had the best to learn from.
Theyâd been riding for a while when they reached a small crossroads, one stirred up by a churning mixture of hoofprints, footprints, arrowheads, and blood, strewn over the sand like some macabre afterimage of death. Seeing it reminded her of too many things, and she swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise in her throat. This⊠clearly, a battle had taken place here, a desperate one at that. She tried not to imagine her friends as part of it, because it was hard to look at all the blood and believe they had survived. That anyone had survived.
Dark blue eyes flickered from Cor, whose jaw was so tight a muscle in it jumped, to Donnelly, slightly green, and then to Lucien, whose face was just as stony as it had been the whole ride.
Ashton was less guarded with his emotions, as a grimace worked itself into his face, but he did not speak his thoughts. There had been a fight, that much was clear and he'd expect nothing less from Sophia, Tessa, and Lia. However, none of them had any idea where they were at, save for Quinn, and Ashton was not about to begin trusting the man now. Still, they had no choice in the matter but to believe the man knew that the were safe and could lead them to where they were kept. It was not a pleasant state of affairs, to put mildly. Ashton spared a glance at Lucien before returning his gaze back to Quinn.
There were no bodies.
This was the detail that Nostariel chose to fix in her mind. No bodies meant that someone had survived this, perhaps many someones. It did not bode well in the long runâthose she knew were not the type to bury others in shallow graves or dispose of them in the ocean, and the fact that her horse could even now be treading on such a burial site was disconcerting, to say the least. But if she knew someone had survived, she would believe that Sophia and the others were among them until she had no choice but to acknowledge otherwise.
âWhere to from here?â She directed her question to Serah Quinn, as he was the only one who knew where they were supposed to be headed.
Dairren's face was not an easy one to read, clearly being someone that had some experience in concealing his emotions, and his eyes held a nearly permanently hard look to them. They looked now not to the ground and the evidence of the battle that had occurred, but rather to the surroundings, which appeared to concern him more. He brought his horse to a halt, and smoothly dismounted, his earlier injury appearing not to bother him overmuch.
"It's not far now. Leave the horses here, we go on foot." He made a hooking gesture of his right hand, indicating the desired direction. "We should swing wide along this road, to avoid possible sentries. Just in case, have your weapons ready, and stay silent from here on out." To aid those with heavier armor, Estella suggested tying fabric around and between some of the noisier joints, and quickly sacrificed a cloak for the process, which was completed in efficient silence. The resulting lack of metal-on-metal chinking, however soft, was a relief.
Dairren led them into the hills, following the road for only a short period of time. The group moved as quietly as they could, though some were more adept at this than others. Dairren was swift in his assessments of the land, stopping for only as long as he deemed necessary to properly scout out the land ahead, and confirm that no enemies lay in wait for them. Though he wielded a hand and a half sword at the moment, a number of smaller blades could be seen sheathed, from short swords down to smaller knives, previously concealed under his hooded cloak, which he no longer wore. His face was lined with age, but still his step was sure and strong.
It was about the moment when it began to seem like he was leading them nowhere that he held up his fist and indicated that the group should come to a full stop. "It's just ahead. Move softly, follow my lead." Moving out from behind the rock he'd stopped at, he descended a small rise and approached what appeared from behind to be a relatively average rock formation. After shoving aside some overgrown bushes, however, he revealed a doorway in the rock, visible slits carving out a roughly man-sized hole.
"The magister who lorded over this place, long ago," he explained, pushing aside another bush and feeling across the face of the rock with his hand, "had an entrance of his own installed, so he might come and go without the slaves seeing him, I imagine. I discovered it in the earliest weeks of my flight from Kirkwall, over a decade ago." After searching a moment more, his hand settled on a subtly hidden handle in the rock, which he closed his fingers around, twisted, and pulled.
With a surprising lack of noise, the rock barring their path sank into the earth, opening up a passageway. No light came from within, but a torch could be seen set into the wall. Taking it from the sconce, he held the end of it out to Nostariel. "If you would, Warden..." Nostariel nodded, flicking her hand in a sharp motion that produced a flame over her palm. Holding it to the end of the torch, she passed it back and forth a few times, until there was a healthy flame going, and then snuffed hers out by closing her fingers over it. With a slight smile and a silent nod, she stepped back, knowing sheâd be better at the middle or back of the group rather than in the front.
"The other end is barred as well," Dairren explained, leading the way into the tunnel. "They'll not see us approach." The hall was only wide enough for one at a time to fit in, and with decent spacing between each member, they one by one filed inside, leaving the doorway open behind them. The sound inside seemed to echo more strongly off the walls, every little clink of armor that was not suppressed sounding twice as loud as before, though Quinn was quick to assure them that they would not be heard from the other side.
Eventually, the tunnel came to a sharp ninety degree turn right, and her Dairren stopped, finding what appeared to be a small peephole in the wall, allowing him vision of the room on the other side. "The most likely place they would choose to keep prisoners would be... here. The room's empty." He frowned, the pause his first since arriving in front of the mercenary headquarters. His stony visage threatened to break for only the briefest of moments, however, as he looked back to Lucien, the second in line.
"We'll have to search room by room. This door will open into a sort of back rooms, offices and sleeping areas of the management. It's the logical place they would keep prisoners. Any Coterie we encounter must be dealt with quickly, and quietly." With that, he quickly located and pulled another handle, and a door that was previously invisible to them once again opened with a surprising lack of sound, allowing them to file into the empty room. Two support beams were all that stood before them, the room otherwise bare, save for many light footprints in the dirt.
Lucien said nothing, his eyes falling half-lidded for a moment before he nodded. He turned over his shoulder, casting a look to the others. âMind your steps, and look out for each other.â Of course, he hardly thought Ashton and Nostariel needed such basic advice, but he was not oblivious to the unease in his Lions, and he knew that they needed to hear him sounding calm and confident, whether he felt that way or not. They were also smart enough to know that this was probably a trap, and that he was springing it on purpose. Now, though, he was beginning to see more dimensions to it, including that not everything was as Quinn had planned for it to be. How that worked out for them was as yet undetermined, but he wasnât planning for anything in particular.
"They were here," Ashton noted aloud. He knelt beside one of the support beams, examining the dirt around it. Someone had been there, judging by the dirt's displacement. However, it wasn't the dirt that told him that either Sophia or Lia had been there. Plucking something off of the splinters of the beam, Ashton turned around and showed everyone what he'd found. A long golden blonde strand of hair. "Recently, though why did they move them, I wonder?" he said, letting the hair slip through his fingers before standing again, gripping his bow with both hands. "Let's go, the quicker the better."
Dairren did not seem to find the finding of a hair interesting, sparing it only a single glance, instead moving to the edge of the open doorway to ensure that no one outside had heard the words just spoken. After a brief, tense moment, he gave the signal to follow him out into the hall beyond. Torches periodically dotted the walls, allowing Dairren to drop his own, and they cautiously peered into the other nearby rooms, finding nothing. There were only three on each side in this particular wing, all with their doors open, and all devoid of anyone, hostage or Coterie. It left them with little choice but to proceed down the hall and closer to the center of the mine's upper level.
"I don't like this," Quinn admitted, as he neared a corner. Coming to a stop, he placed his back against the wall. "Up ahead is the mouth of the cave, the main... entrance. Shit." He had peered around the corner with one eye, and clearly did not like what he saw. Turning back to look at this others, his mouth was set into a hard line, his mood clearly having turned fouler than before.
"They have her up ahead. I saw her. They're... waiting for us. I don't know how they knew about the other entrance." Dairren's expression was not one of panic, but his frustration was clearly evident by now. "We'll have to speak to them, then. We can't risk a fight, not now."
Before anyone could respond to them, however, a woman's voice called clearly from beyond, from the main room of the cave. "There's no point hiding anymore! You have no more plays, Quill, and no routes of retreat." And before Dairren could so much as curse in anger, another voice sounded out from behind them, a man's, likely just having emerged from the tunnel they entered from.
"You're cut off, Lions. Stand down, or the lady gets her throat opened." Slowly, he entered the hallway behind them, in cover behind a tower shield, and more Coterie men followed in his wake. They made no move to attack, but remained defensive. "Go," the one in the lead said. "Don't even need to drop your weapons yet if you don't like. But get out in the main room. Lady Threnhold wants to speak. No one else needs to die."
Threnhold. Nostariel remembered that name from years ago. And a faceâa lovely fair woman with dark hair. A noble, so what was she doing with the Coterie? But though the thought seemed incongruous, when the group moved into the larger chamber of the complex, she was indeed present. Dressed less finely than she had been at Sophiaâs birthday party of course, but unmistakably the same woman. Nostariel looked next to Sophia, who was standing somewhat in front of Miranda. Armorless, bound at her wrists and ankles. She looked a bit scraped up, but Nostariel supposed this was likely to be the result of the fight that had resulted in her capture rather than anything since. There was no trace of Tessa or Lia to be seen.
Miranda held Sophia by the shoulder with one hand, the other clutching an elegantly crafted knife. Sophia was gagged once again and thus prevented from speaking. The two were situated on an elevated wooden platform that spanned much of the room's right and far wall, accompanied by over a dozen Coterie archers, with bows poised on the approaching group. The criminals that had flanked them continued to press them forward from behind, while at least twenty five more awaited them on the ground level ahead.
"Glad to see that sense could prevail," Miranda stated, smiling. "If all goes well, Sophia will be released from this place shortly. The rest of you will have to stay for some time, sadly, but arrangements for your releases will be made as well, down the line. This is truly nothing personal, merely a step I needed to take, before the opportunity was gone to me forever."
Dairren seemed to be only half hearing her, his eyes locked on Sophia. He looked pained, still confused, and angered. Sophia still clearly bore the weight of what had happened earlier, and now the rippling effects of her capture. It had led to the subsequent capture of many of her closest friends. And now, with Quinn right before her, she found herself more concerned for the others. Her original purpose in all of this no longer seemed to matter.
"Lay down your weapons," Miranda commanded. "The men will escort you... to your chambers, so to speak."
Lucien initially made no move to divest himself of his armament. âWhere are my scouts?â He inquired softly, his voice on an even lower register than usual, probably not intentionally, though it did match the narrow cast of his eyes and the tightened way he held himself in place. He didnât look directly at Sophia, but rather squarely over her shoulder at Miranda.
"She was instructed to come alone, if you'll recall. The scouts are dead."
"There's no way this'll work," Ashton said slowly, but angrily. "You've got the Commander of the Lions, the Guard Captain, and a Grey Warden. There's only one way this works out for you," Ashton said. However, the grip he had on his bow loosened before he threw it onto the ground, followed by his quiver. "Badly. I'll see your pretty little neck in a noose before all is said and done," Ashton said, raising his hands to his head so that the Coterie could take his other weapons.
A fist was the first thing to reach him, clocking him in the side of the temple. Ashton's head snapped viciously to the side, before whipping back and staring at the man intently. A trickle of blood fell from the side of his head. He'd remember that face yet.
The Lions, particularly the younger ones, looked stricken at the news about their comrades, but Lucien himself said nothing, and reached up to unbuckle the thick leather band holding Everburn to his back. He lowered it to the ground with care, then took the knife out of his boot as well. That was all the weapons he had on him, but he stood stiffly while a few members of the Coterie patted him down as well. Behind him, his mercs took their cue and did the same, though Cor may have accidentally stomped on a toe with his heavy boots. It earned him a warning look from his Commander, and he looked down, face set into a scowl.
It wasnât until he was being led away that he dared meet eyes with Sophia, and something in his stony expression shifted as he focused on her. âWhatever she wants, donât give it to her. Trust us to fix this.â Perhaps rather bold words, from a man being led to captivity, but he seemed certain of them.