A Candle in the Darkness (A Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfiction)

The Herald of Andraste

18 Drakonis, 9:41

There was a morning when Antonia Trevelyan woke up and almost knew what she was doing. It was a larger accomplishment than it sounded: Since she had fallen from the breach in the sky, the changes in her life had been many and the learning curves vast, and she had come back here to her hut and wept with frustration and fear more often than she would ever admit to. She believed she had covered it rather well—except from Varric, whose keen eyes seemed to see inside her on occasion. But he had said nothing, for which she was grateful.

Getting dressed, she left the hut, heading for Haven's Chantry. It was cold outside, as it always was, even though in the rest of Thedas she thought it was spring, with the sun's warmth just bringing the plants to life. Haven seemed to exist out of time, somehow.

She heard snatches of conversation as she made her way through the camp: "Really? I hadn't heard", and "What's that in the pot?" and "Well, I won't stand for that", and "Look, it's the Herald of Andraste!"

Antonia had finally stopped looking around when she heard that name, wondering where this blessed Herald might be. She had a hard time believing that she had been touched by the Maker's Bride—she was just a minor noble from Ostwick, who had been assisting at the Conclave in a clerical position. Not that there was anything wrong with that. She took pride in her family heritage, and in the studies that had made her a useful addition to the Conclave. Growing up, she'd been left alone in the family estate in the country quite a bit, and had whiled away her time by studying. By far the youngest in her family, she had always known her role was to be part of the Chantry, unless an extremely advantageous marriage could be arranged for her. As a young child, she had been told by her father that he intended her to be a Templar one day, which is how a young member of Marcher nobility had trained in the use of a greatsword with one of the Free Marches' greatest swordsmen.

By the time she was in her teens, talk of her becoming a Templar had died away, but by then she had grown to love her bouts in the training ring, using her muscles in addition to her brain, learning a different kind of focus, so she had kept it up.

The irony that the only survivor of the Conclave would happen to be someone learned in both books and battle was not lost on Antonia—but to believe that Andraste had somehow chosen her for this role was to believe that the Maker's Bride had also somehow intended the Conclave to be destroyed, and with it so many good people, and for this chaos to be unleashed on the world, and that Antonia could not fathom. It was easier by far for her to believe that her survival, and the mark on her hand that somehow spoke to the rifts in the sky, were coincidence, and that she was still a person, just like all those she passed on her way every day.

But she couldn't argue with every person who addressed her by the title, and she had come to see the wisdom in what her advisors argued—that the people needed to believe, whether she did or not. The people needed to think that Andraste was looking out for them, and that she had sent a Herald down to Thedas to reassure them that somehow everything would come right.

Shaking off her deep thoughts, Antonia looked up. She smiled when she saw Cullen, the Commander of the Inquisition's forces, waiting for her outside the Chantry.

"Are you here to see that I don't trip over my feet or get lost on the way to the War Room?" she asked.

"Not at all. You've never seemed prone to either one—don't sell yourself short." He walked with her, holding the heavy Chantry doors open with the courtesy that was such an intrinsic part of him.

When Antonia had first been shown around Haven and told about her role in the Inquisition, she had been reluctant, overwhelmed, still fighting against what appeared to be her destiny. Leliana, who led the Inquisition's spy corps, had been unyielding in her insistence that Antonia embrace her role, her eyes gleaming with the zeal of a true believer. If Leliana didn't believe Antonia had been touched by Andraste, she faked it very well. Cassandra, who was Antonia's unofficial jailer in those first days when they still weren't sure what to make of her, and had become her trainer and companion in the days since, had been instrumental in forming the Inquisition—if Leliana was a true believer, Cassandra came close to being a zealot. There had been no escape from the scrutiny of either woman, no chance to relax or to come to terms with how she, Antonia, could fit into the Herald's body. Josephine Montilyet, an Antivan whose family Antonia knew slightly, oversaw the Inquisition's diplomacy, and she rarely had time for more than a brief chat.