{Whatever happened to Lily? A possible accounting of a young, foolish girl's trip to the Chantry Prison of Aeonar, and what happens to her there...}

Chapter 1: Tears of Blood

"Those who oppose thee

Shall know the wrath of Heaven"

-from Chant of Andraste: 7

So many chains for one woman to wear.

Lily was certain they'd meant it as a symbol. She felt the weight of the shackles on her wrists and ankles.

Her joints and muscles ached from the four days she had been thusly bound. A heavy iron ring connected her chains to the Templar's horse in front of her.

She bled where her skin had been rubbed raw; the metal burned as it scraped against those open sores.

She understood the message clearly: the weight of her own sins was causing her pain. It wasn't the Chantry's fault; she'd brought this upon herself.

She knew that. Really, the chains weren't necessary.

Jowan.

For the thousandth time since she'd been arrested, Lily cursed the day she'd ever met the mage, cursed her heart for loving him and cursed herself for believing his lies.

Never again.

She had not resisted her capture. She deserved this. She'd taken vows before the Maker, in Andraste's name… and she'd absolutely shattered them, each and every one.

For the love of a bloodmage.

How could she have been such a fool? She closed her eyes against the surge of regret and shame in her heart. She had already cried herself dry of tears, there were no more to shed. She felt a warm drop of blood slide along her skin from her torn wrists and thought that tears of blood would have to do; it was all she had left.

She swayed atop the squat pony they'd found for her to ride just the previous day. Before that, she'd been forced to walk behind their horses. Her knees were still cut and darkly bruised from the many times she'd fallen. So the squat pony was a blessing, she was grateful for the beast, even if her bottom was sore and her legs were burning.

Her jailers reined to a halt and Lily tried to fight off a new wave of dizziness. They had forgotten to give her water lately, and she feared she might feint. The air was dry and uncomfortably cold. She blinked, looking around the ruins of the Imperial Highway they'd been following. They were heading into the mountains.

To Aeonar. Wherever that was.

The taller of the two Hunters dismounted and approached her pony. Like his fellow Templar, he kept his face wrapped and his head under his helm. She could only see his cold, grey eyes.

"Can you stand?" he said. His voice was like gravel.

Lily hoped so. As painful as it would be, she longed to restore circulation to her legs and feet.

The man dragged her, chains and all, from her pony and placed her on her feet. She gasped and stumbled into him. The pain was white in her mind. He held her, but distantly, clinically…clearly only because having to lift her from the ground would mean more work. It was more efficient this way.

After a minute against his icy cold armor, she nodded and gingerly stood on her own. The weight of the chains pulled mercilessly.

The second Hunter (Lily wondered if she were a woman) returned from behind some bushes and nodded to the first. Lily was unchained from the iron ring and led behind the foliage herself. It was embarrassing; even now that she'd done this in front of them several times, doing her personal business this way. She tried hard not to think about it. It was simply their job to watch the prisoner, and simply her job to be as efficient as possible, and not to fall over as her limbs trembled with every movement.

He brought her back to the horses. The shorter Hunter placed a canteen of water to Lily's lips, and she drank as much as she could, even as the first Hunter was refastening the chains to her cuffs.

Silence. The Hunters rarely spoke, even to each other. The wind gusted and Lily shivered. A cube of trail tack was offered to her. She opened her mouth to accept it. It was bitter, and tasted of sawdust, but it was, at this point, better than nothing.

Strangely, those horrid cubes are also what the Hunters themselves ate. Sparingly.

The taller Hunter produced at blindfold from his pack. "The remainder of this journey is forbidden to your eyes, prisoner," he said.

He tied the blindfold snugly about her eyes. Lily was grateful for the bit of warmth it gave her face.

She heard her pony kneel and felt her keepers' cold, gloved hands help her back atop the beast. They turned away from the highway and moved toward the northeast.

Next stop would be Aeonar, her new home.

Please say hello if you've read this and think it might be worth another chapter or two! ty ty!