Chapter Text
Evelyn Trevelyan never had the notion of a life without injustice, but this was excessive.
It was like they were all flowers connected to the same root, blooming simultaneously the moment some biological imperative in the plant’s essence decided it was spring. She woke up in the middle of the night, at the same second as every single mage in the vicinity of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Perhaps just like every magic-user on the continent.
There was the feeling of someone pressing a scalpel in her mind and slicing deep, opening a protective film which differentiated herself and the world. No pain or fear. Evelyn was too confused to do anything but ride the sensation through. For an amazing, monstrous moment, she thought she understood what Andraste felt on her execution pyre: torn between both the Maker and the physical world.
Then she was pulled back, back through the Veil even though Evelyn didn’t recall crossing it to begin with. Thudding sounds could be heard outside the large tent she shared with other mages- the ones who weren’t ranked high enough in the abolished-Circle hierarchy to earn a room in the temple, but held enough political clout that their presence at the Conclave would add more weight to the mages’ position. Evelyn’s existence was a disgrace to House Trevelyan as a byproduct of a mage and templar’s illicit affair. Despite this, many within the family held a soft spot for her, most prominently her cousin. Former-First Enchanter Josephus was intending to use that affection to sway Evelyn’s uncle, Knight-Commander Barclay, to support leniency for the mages.
Evelyn’s cot neighbour summoned a light wisp and she winced, turning away from the glaring brightness which encompassed the tent. A loud voice, rough with sleep and confusion complained. Even with her eyes closed, Evelyn could tell when the light pulsed twice before being banished. A meek ‘sorry’ was uttered in apology.
Searching blindly for her hose, Evelyn dressed her lower half, adjusting part of her chemise, and stumbled outside. She stopped at the entrance.
“What. The fuck?” a mage behind her said when he, too, looked up.
Evelyn might have called it beautiful, if she ignored the foreboding feeling in her stomach. A green, white, and blue sunset laced the sky, if one replaced the sun with a mass of white, high in the air, pulling at smoke and clouds to form the suggestion of a tornado. Emerald spread out from the point of chaos, brightening the sky to such an extent one could see in what was once pitch dark. Teal spread out like fissures the further the green was from the centre, as if whatever happened had cracked the mantle of night to partially reveal day.
That didn’t cause fear. The floating and quickly falling segments of rock in the air did. The biggest pieces were dropping down first. Evelyn watched in dawning horror as a wagon-sized chunk of stone smashed into a nearby tent.
“Get-- get all the mages,” she said, pulling the man's arm to get his attention. “We need to be safe.”
He was one of the Orlesian ones her group met up with on their way. The one whose name had too many vowels. Not snooty, though. He quickly caught on during the journey that while Evelyn didn’t have rank, she had the respect of most of her peers. When news of the dissolution of the Circle of Magi spread to the Ostwick Circle, she was one of the ones who prevented the reaction from turning into a massacre.
The Orlesian stared wide-eyed at her before stepping back and into the tent. Evelyn herself headed further out into the encampment. Except for around fifty of the most important figures, the majority of their people there for the conclave had set up makeshift lodgings around Haven. A year previous, templar quarters would have surrounded the mage-designated area. Now, the templars were situated directly opposite from where Evelyn was.
She power-walked to where she held a vague notion they set up their tents. Running would have been quicker, but a desperate voice in her head said that running would make her suspicious, a target. It was not wise for a mage to run recklessly in the Circles. If they did, templars would deem them a troublemaker- in reality, a convenient scapegoat for any other troubles. The trouble currently happening was dangerous, uncontrollable, and obviously magic. Even if Evelyn and her people had nothing to do with it, they were already scapegoats. Evelyn could only control how much ire would be directed at herself.
It was too quiet, she thought, even as she heard the cackle of flames and increasingly frequent shouts for help, for friends, for information. The stones in the sky weren’t originally on fire, however their landing caused a blazing ring of orange and sometimes green upon impact.
Evelyn stretched out a hand to redirect the fire eating up a tent in her path. The blaze eagerly leaped toward her like a famished dragon, faster than she was prepared for. An instinctive crossing of her arms drove the fire to her left. She didn’t have time to ponder why it reacted so aggressively. A lot of mysterious things had already happened in the last half hour. Evelyn only made a mental note to deal with future sky-created fires through water.
Indistinguishable from other tents at a distance, the templar area was thick from lack of magic when she drew closer. Spell purges were as frequent as heartbeats; Evelyn felt as if someone were squeezing her insides every second. Still, she tread on. Her uncle was at the temple, hopefully doing better than the people outside. (She was going to ignore the fact that the tornado of light in the sky was situated in the same direction as the temple.) Evelyn still had her cousin. If she got to him, he could possibly protect her and her mages when accusations came.
The templars were in various stages of armour, running around to put out fires with the snow and save people crushed by the debris. She peered at their hardened faces, flinching away when she spotted a familial, non-family face. If anyone recognized her as a mage, there was no telling what they would do in their panicked, angry state.
“Maxwell!” Evelyn shouted again and again.
The sharp orders and returns of surrounding templars seemed to drown out her words.
A desperate cry came from her right. “Evie!”
Usual irritation at the nickname was pushed aside as Evelyn turned to search her surroundings. Templars and mages didn’t give each other nicknames. To their peers, yes. Not a templar to a mage nor vice versa. There was no rule against it, just an implicit understanding to not get too close to the enemy, not publically. One couldn’t be friends with a person who had so much power over them. Maxwell ignored that rule, reasoned he could get away with it because they were family, although legally a mage had none. Over the years, Evelyn had picked up sensitivity to the annoying name of ‘Evie’, simply from how it so blatantly defied convention.
She found him bleeding in the slushed snow. A large piece of stained glass had impaled his shoulder. Stained glass was a rare thing to see, much less falling from the sky. Evelyn had only ever seen the art in the ostentatious Ostwick chantry. She immediately reached out for it.
Maxwell jerked back. “Don’t. It’s in deep.”
“I can heal it.”
“Before I bleed out?” came the doubtful reply.
Evelyn couldn’t help her huff of exasperation. In the Circle she had only ever dealt with minor injuries. Living outside of it quickly introduced her to healing major wounds and poisonings. Templars had a strong resistance to magic, but it wasn’t anything an experienced mage couldn’t handle. The problem would come from the area they were in. Twenty layers of spell purges were like twenty kilograms of rocks on her shoulders. They moved farther away to a less inhabited area.
Taking out the shard brought forth a grunt of pain from Maxwell. She pressed down on Maxwell’s other shoulder to get him to kneel and bring her a better view of the damage. Healing magic was a lot like blood magic. How Evelyn imagined it to be, anyways. She wasn’t a blood mage, couldn’t imagine being one without also remembering the greedy look on a templar’s face when she endured the Harrowing. It had turned to disappointment when he realised she wasn’t possessed.
Evelyn felt Maxwell’s lifeforce, incredibly strong since they were so close and he was bleeding. Then, she gave a strong yank at the magic within her, compelling the two forces momentarily together. Pale green light erupted and a strange feeling of lightness came upon Evelyn before her back hit hard snow.
She had put too much power into the healing spell. Like some sort of inexperienced apprentice. Belatedly, Evelyn came upon the thought that the magical catastrophe they were in might have affected the magic in the air.
“Well,” Maxwell said, “you did heal it.”
“Yes, I managed that,” she echoed, staring at the frenzied sky.
Another round of stone rained down. With it, tangible fire. A light landed between them, emitting such a strong green glow it screamed ‘magic! I am magic!’. Maxwell responded with a spell purge. No effect. Unknown magic then. Yet, something called her to it, like a siren.
It was as if the chaos above had shaken even the stars from their footholds and one had fallen to where Evelyn and Maxwell sat.
Her reckless cousin reached out.
“Don’t--!”
—
In Kaaras’ defence, he would have avoided stepping on it if he knew the mess it would bring.
The lightning-pain-agony which dragged him into unconsciousness had disappeared when he resurfaced. Instead, a stretching sensation bothered his senses. It felt like someone had cut a hole in the sole of his right foot and was slowly extracting every bit of bone and blood they could.
Kaaras dearly hoped everything was just a long nightmare. He didn’t know how he could cope if what he saw was a reality: ruins of ash and fire instead of a great temple. The thought made him want to curl up and he pulled at his leg. The grip around his ankle tugged back. A snarl which sounded more like a whine let loose from his throat and he kicked back.
“I would appreciate it,” came a clipped tone, “if you held still while I saved your life.”
The uncomfortable sensation began anew. Maker, he hated magic. Even healing was like someone trailing a nail down his spine.
‘It’s because you’re untrained,’ an ex-Circle turned mercenary mage had once said. ‘You don’t know how to use your own magic so your body is hostile to everything else.’
Untrained his ass. He never became a maleficar, did he? It wasn’t his fault no one wanted to train a Vashoth, not even the apostate who pointed it out. As if getting better control of his magic would turn him into a Saarebas, a mad dog who only knew how to kill.
Opening his eyes revealed a dirty stone ceiling. Despite being inside, Kaaras could still feel the outside cold in his bones. The cot he was lying on dug into his shoulders, clearly having been intended for a human. Charred flesh and fire still lingered in his memory.
“Where am I?” he asked, voice hoarse.
The light from the window hinted at it being day. When they finally stopped fighting the demons near the temple, understanding it was futile since the weird green portal in the air, which suddenly appeared in front of them, kept on popping them out, the sun was just beginning to rise. Five of his men had been with Kaaras, the others were assigned nightwatch inside the temple. Everyone liked a big, bad ‘Qunari’ mercenary to glare intimidatingly at would-be evildoers, but they were never pretty enough, trustworthy enough, to be there during the meetings. Thus, they were assigned the last shift and a tentative prediction that nothing would happen during the night. Nothing had cost the Valo-kas mercenary company fifteen lives.
“You’re at a guardhouse, a few kilometres away from Haven,” the elf at the foot of his cot said. “Your companions are with the other mercenaries and soldiers, helping out where they can.”
“Most of my people were at the temple.”
The elf paused his magic and looked up at him. “I’m sorry. I know they must have been dear to you.”
Kaaras looked away from the sincerity in the slate-coloured eyes. Death wasn’t a rarity for a sword-sell. He had dealt with the death of companions before. None with such a great, sudden number though. It was hard to comprehend. He didn’t think he would be able to truly understand until he saw the bodies, yet he doubted there would be anything distinguishable in the devastation.
There was a female drawf who sat on a cot a couple metres away. A surface dwarf if the tan was anything to go by. Her short, choppy haircut framed a face which currently held a wry smile.
“At least you’re still alive, hmm?” The Tantervale accent was unmistakable. Why did a Marcher dwarf bother to go all the way to attend the conclave? She didn’t wait for a reply. “I’m Malika. Your friends said you’re called Kaaras. I’m glad to finally be introduced to my poison buddy.”
“What buddy?” He couldn’t hide the hesitation in his voice. Kaaras was a warrior, not a rogue. Toxins were things he usually steered clear of.
Malika’s next words stole the breath from his lungs. “You know, since we’re both magically poisoned.”
“It would be inaccurate to call it a poison,” the elf spoke up.
“Why not? It’s inside us and we’re dying from it all the same.”
The heaving shudder of the sky interrupted any reply. Pain laced up Kaaras’s foot and he could see Malika’s own face twist. Her inner wrist glowed a green he was beginning to get sick of, the colour spreading through her veins and stopping at the elbow. He turned to see the same thing happening to his own leg. Three pulses of pain later, each accompanied by brief light reaching his inner thigh, and the glowing faded.
“That,” he breathed, “is what’s killing us?”
The elf spoke up again. “No, not if I have anything to do with it.”
In the following silence, Kaaras regarded the stranger working on his foot. He usually thought elves had a softer quality about them, even the males, but this one, this one had little attractive attributes about him at all. Bald with an uncommon tallness that was apparent even when kneeling, the elf pulled and twisted the green magic in his foot.
“...Right, I-- what was your name again?”
“Solas.”
—
He would have chosen to go deaf, if Mahanon were given the choice (but choice was a luxury to his kind twice over).
When the conclave explosion had blown Mahanon on his back, a fragment of the sky had decided without asking to land on his face, right at the intersection of his jaw and his left ear. He should not have thought of it as a violation, not when he knew the meaning of the word, but his mind could only describe it as that.
The magic ripped him open to his core, spreading out all he was and could be. Mahanon was a green dawn streaking across the sky, the lurching rise of a sylvan’s aged branches, pure water trickling and then crashing down in the dark of an underground cave. He was a single entity condensed in the smallest raindrop, he was also an ancient storm beating down the earth to shape his desires.
It was a heady feeling, literally in his head, and Mahanon lay there on the frozen ground, letting the magic ride through him. It was always better to endure these things than fight back.
The sky swelled, unnatural colours colliding into each other in comforting, indistinguishable shapes. Half a memory, half a fantasy came to Mahanon: his mother’s soothing, unintelligible lullaby in the deepest part of night. Her scarred hand on a head that had not been touched yet by cruelty. It was a song Mahanon could never grasp, neither the kindness of its shape nor the broken vi’dirth words that his mother secreted away even when the rest was taken away.
When Mahanon relearned the vi’dirth, curling his words with a Planasene accent instead of ancestral Brecilian, he still could not find the melody nor its meaning, no matter how many lav’vun and gen’vun he visited in his missions. Now, Mahanon knew the meaning, heard it clearly from the winds singing in a vi’dirth that dropped like stones in his heart.
At sky-touched stone in white night
As the snow lay on the ground
Stood a youth-torn half-formed Dalish boy
Seeking answers in mountains found
His mother stood beside him and said
"You'll win my boy, don't fear."
Mahanon mumbled along and the belly of the sky grew closer to him. Close, but closer still and he would fall in.
A third voice cut through the air- no, a sharp continuous sound. Whining.
Gaze reluctantly breaking from the dense magic high above him, Mahanon’s grey eyes rolled around for the source. There, at his left a large russet-coloured war hound sat politely but with complaint. Mahariel’s dog.
A coldness that had nothing to do with the environment seeped into Mahanon as he remembered the reason why he was in the Frostback Mountains. The suddenness of his movement when he sought to get back on his feet brought forth a headache and ache from the left half of his face. Mahanon gripped his head, crouching, and set his thoughts in order.
Mahariel had done something, of course. Or the creature they were hunting had done something which she did not (could not?) prevent. Mahanon needed to get up and help her, run up and up the mountain once again to the shemlen temple and- he did not know. A quick glance up revealed the changed sky did not change back to expected night.
The dog broke its whine with a sharp commanding bark resonating within its muscular torso. Arrogant, that beast, just like he imagined its namesake would be.
When Mahanon had heard for the first time the title Mahariel gave to a simple shemlen animal, he could not stop a sharp inhale of offence but chose not to comment, still too over-awed by her reputation. Time wore away his reservations and on a warm autumnal evening smelling of smoke and spiced apples, Mahanon had pointed an accusing finger at the beast (a crime the dog would never forget) and said: “Blasphemous.”
This was spoken in the Common Trade Tongue instead of their usual vi’dirth as the Dalish did not have a word for what he meant, not when it was a fellow Dalish doing the sacrilege.
Mahariel, occupying herself with letting her dark hair down from the trappings of its braided bun, made a show of rolling her eyes. “It is just a name. Are you a da'len, still scared of our people’s stories?”
“I would call you a heretic,” he said jokingly, “if you weren’t a hero.”
“Just be truthful, and call me hunted.”
Fen’Andrem.
Mahanon stood up. Answers would be in what was left of the Temple of Sacred Ashes.
—
“You’re so fucking stupid,” Maxwell said to himself.
If the guard overheard him from the other side of his jail cell, Maxwell would swear to the Maker that he was speaking to the wall. Not that his jailors did not already know he was dumb as stone. When he recounted how he just picked up the glowing bit of magic now stuck to his right hand, Cassandra ‘Right Hand of the Divine’ Pentaghast raised one thin eyebrow and repeated his words back to him. Slowly.
Maxwell would have taken a year’s worth of Templar recruit hazing to wipe that look from his memory. He knew it was not the worst of his problems, although his pride was in pieces, much like a certain temple. Merciful Andraste! Even being in this musty smelling cell was not too bad. His innocence of maleficar evildoing was quickly established and him being shut away was more to guarantee the magic leeching at his hand would not harm any passerby.
What troubled Maxwell most was Evie. When they took him away to be investigated, Evie was also dragged by other Templars, presumably to also be questioned. She was innocent and knew how to handle herself against angry men with swords, but that did not assuage Maxwell’s panic. All it took was one slip of anger.
He wondered if that was what happened in the Temple of Sacred Ashes. One simple, malicious thought by a mage and an explosion. Everyone dead. Everyone important dead. Divine Justinia V dead. First Enchanter Josephus dead. His feather de–
Maxwell turned sharply from the wall and walked towards the bars. Light from torches off the walls allowed him to clearly see the face of his guard, a brown-haired, moustached man with a slight form covered in Orlesian armour. No one he recognized. Maxwell hoped Evie had a friendly Ostwick Templar at her interrogation.
“Whatever this is,” he waved his right hand, its green light momentarily breaking his gaze, “it doesn’t seem like it will start setting fire to our surroundings. We have much better things to be doing than standing in this shack.”
The guard shifted. “That’s for Seeker Pentaghast to decide.”
“But you know I’m right. There’s people out there right now who need our help. And we should. I want to help them.” Maxwell softened his tone to be more personable. “What’s your name?”
Just before Maxwell could hear the guard’s answer, an echoing bang of the front door broke through their moment. Angry yelling in an unknown language accompanied the sound along with the clanking of armour and feet being dragged. Maxwell peered his head to look.
Three suits of armour broke its huddle to push a slight figure down to the floor. Shoulder-length black hair might have convinced him it was a woman the Templars were handling if not for the low, furious voice that was still doubtlessly hurling creative insults. Insults in Dalish, Maxwell realised as he took in the facial markings of the elf. It looked like a child drew squiggles all over the elf’s face, thin lines reminiscent of roots scrawled mindlessly across his cheeks and chin. In the centre of his forehead, low to the bridge of his nose, thicker straight lines ran vertically before branching out in what could be seen as a tree.
A templar pressed his knee to the elf’s back, forcing insults to be replaced by shallow panting in order to preserve breath.
“The only reason we haven’t killed you where you lay is so that we can draw out the truth of your plans and the devastation you’ve wrought,” came the voice of a strong accent. Seeker Pentaghast had come in after the rowdy group, looking just as intimidating as when Maxwell first met her.
When pressure released enough to properly speak, the elf wasted no time. “Vaatak Darba fi 'albak!”
One of the templars hit him on the head, but was stopped from taking it further by the rise of Seeker Pentaghast’s hand.
“So you can speak Nevarran,” her voice turned wry, “or at least curse in it. Now tell us in Common about your Mark.” She unsheathed her sword and positioned its point underneath the elf’s chin, turning up to show the left side of his face. “This one right here.”
As if powered by the dramatic air, green sparked from steady flames to a roaring fire, momentarily covering the elf’s face. Maxwell’s own hand burst into mind-numbing pain and he could not help but release a grunt of discomfort. Surges of the power had been happening intermittently, but he had been too focused on the scene before him to brace for it. The elf stayed silent until he could meet his interrogator’s eyes again.
“It’s probably magic.”
Seeker Pentaghast’s expression became even more grave after the joke. “Explain it.” She pressed the tip of her sword deep enough for a shallow cut.
“The magic is probably the same kind that’s eating up the sky right now. But beyond that, I can’t say. I don’t know," the elf said quickly.
Scoffing, but letting her sword fall, Seeker Pentaghast replied, “You expect me to believe that? A mage, a Dalish mage sneaking up the mountain to the scene of the crime- and you had nothing to do with any of it?”
“If I were your enemy, I wouldn’t have regretfully stopped to save your men from getting torn apart by demons.”
Maxwell gripped the cell’s bars tightly. Demons were afoot. Was that because of the hole in the sky or were the mages… Either way, a normal person did not stand a chance against demons or abominations, much less soft-hearted Chantry officials and ambassadors with their uncalloused hands.
“That doesn’t mean you’re on our side,” Seeker Pentaghast said. “Or that you weren’t involved in this.”
“It means he’s useful to us though,” a new voice called out and Maxwell turned his head to spot a red-haired woman motioning for the Templars to release the elf.
During his own interrogation, he had heard a guard call her ‘Lady Nightingale’ and Seeker Pentaghast referred to her as Leliana.
The Seeker continued looking steadily at the elf. “If he’s willing. If his intentions are true.”
“I want the sky to be fixed as much as you do.”
“I doubt that,” Seeker Pentaghast scoffed, but she turned her back and took out her keys to slot one of them into the lock connected to Maxwell’s cell.
Finally, to be free. Maxwell retrieved his own sword which had been placed tantalisingly up against the nearby wall. “How do we do that though? It’s not like we have a needle and thread to patch it right up.”
Seeker Pentaghast’s gaze drew down to his hand. “You’ll see.”
“I’ll get the others,” Lady Nightingale said and left.
Maxwell stopped to hold out his hand to the elf, who still kneeled on the floor. It would do well to make an ally of something who had the same ‘condition’ as him. The elf eyed him wearily but took his hand all the same.
“I hope they didn’t rough you up too much,” Maxwell said. It was not a lie, but not one full of concern either. Templars could be so much worse than the light head smack that was given. “I’m Maxwell of House Trevelyan.”
“I’m Mahanon,” he said, “of Clan Lavellan.”
—
Malika had wished for something like this when she was a young little dwarva. Not exactly this (her imagination was not that good), but like the sky opening up with its monstrous energy, like an apparent wrongness so heavily felt that even topsiders and humans could realise the horribleness of gaping air, like pulling, dragging, lifting your body away from the solid, safe ground into the unknown.
Yes, Malika with all her dreams to become sun-touched, had unfortunately wished for something like this. She was not myopic enough to think all this death and devastation came from her simple wish. However, Malika was self-centred enough to blame the Ancestors for sticking her with a piece of the decaying sky. A good deal of them were deep lords in their life and it was just like them to be petty enough to curse her for stepping out of rank by going to the surface.
Malika did not know what the three Marked strangers next to her had done to deserve the same fate.
The Qunari seemed downright tormented that magic managed to stick to his foot like nug shit. She thought for a moment he was a mage himself, what with the heavy metal staff of his, but he did not use magic to fight, just good old hard whacks, and when she saw Kaaras fluidly use his superior strength to punch a shade in the face before side kicking it into shadow vapour, Malika solidly labelled him a warrior. And well, not to stereotype, it just certainly explained the thought process it took for him to get a Mark on his foot.
“I thought it was fire,” he had said heatedly. “You’ve seen the green flames all around, right? And what else would you do except stamp it out?”
“I can see why you’d do it, but when you tell this story to others it wouldn’t hurt to embellish,” Varric said. He was the other dwarf in the party, not the other shady one though. That co-title belonged to Mahanon.
When Solas finished taking a look at Maxwell’s Mark and reached for Mahanon’s face, the Dalish had flinched so suddenly that he nearly backed up far enough to step off the cliffside.
“I apologise,” the healer(?) said. “It was rude of me to try to touch you so abruptly. I do think you should have that Mark looked at. It causes you pain, doesn’t it?”
Mahanon raised his lips in a half-snarl. “I have not slept in forty hours, my face feels as if it is being continuously sliced with a sword, and this,” he spread his arm out to the wide expanse of white ground before them, “is my third time going up this fucking mountain. No matter how benevolent your intentions, I’m in no mood to be poked and prodded.”
“Third.” Cassandra drew out the word. “We caught you when you were on your second attempt. So what was the first?”
The annoyance in Mahanon’s expression suddenly cooled and he looked at Cassandra consideringly, not saying a word.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Malika said in a breezy manner to dispel the tension (it would not do for a non-demon fight to break out this high up). “He’s a spy.”
Everyone looked at Mahanon then, who was sullenly glaring at her with such obviousness that it was proof then and there her words rang true. Rogues like her tended to have a knack for spotting others in the shadows.
“That answer was not far from your mind, durgen’len, perhaps you just wish to cover up your own tracks?”
Malika no longer cared about her cover, not when she was in something so above her pay grade. “Yeah, I’m a spy too.” She made a dramatic hand sign and winked. “Beloved daughter of House Cadash, disposable tool to the international Carta.”
Varric made a face. Good. It would be embarrassing if everyone reacted to her introduction with faces as blank as Maxwell’s. Honestly, her opinion of him went down at his display of ignorance. What kind of Templar did not know the supplier of fifty percent of their isana? Everytime the Templars did their ritual of snorting up some blue dust and thanking the Maker, they should additionally be thanking the Carta for getting it into their hands in such a timely and (relatively) cheap manner.
Kaaras started, “So two spies in the party. Unless someone else wants to join in?” No one took him up on the offer. “One is for the Carta, the other I’m guessing is with the Dalish?”
“Surely you don’t think I would be the lapdog of any shemlen organisation.”
“What do I know of spies? You could even be Ben-Hassrath.”
“Enough,” Cassandra said. “The more time we waste, the more demons spill forth from each tear in the air.”
They continued up the mountain, saving a patrol in the process and taking their turns to close all the fade rifts they came across. It was an unpleasant feeling, like having all her blood and air sucked right out of her. Malika was relieved she could hand that duty off to other people. Dwarva were not meant for magic.
Maxwell was the one with the easiest time closing the rifts, even better than the mage. Another thing he should be thanking the Carta for.
Kaaras, when asked to pull his weight, very dramatically looked down at the ground. “It’s on my foot.”
They did not ask him for any more magical help after that, but he would have to find a way to do something, balance on one leg maybe, when they got to the big rift, the Breach.
The Temple of Sacred Ashes was in ashes. It took all of Malika’s strength to not voice that joke. The Seeker in their party seemed hot-headed and she was not willing to test how much immunity the Mark gave her from friendly fire.
The sneaky one, Leliana, met up with them at what used to be the entrance. She was accompanied by a few soldiers and… a marbari?
“All of you made it. Thank merciful Andraste.”
The dog barked and ran, heading straight for Mahanon. Malika tensed; mabari were trained war dogs, perhaps this one was trained to attack surly elves on sight? However the animal simply slowed down and circled him, pressing itself up against him like a cat.
Mahanon said something to the dog in his elf language, tone part affectionate, part annoyed.
“He knows you,” Leliana said, surprise and quick-witted understanding forming on her face. “You know Mahariel. You even know that she’s here- what she was doing.”
Cassandra's expression turned sharp. “Mahariel. The Hero of Ferelden.” She glared at Mahanon. “You knew about her and you didn’t tell us.”
“I told you about myself,” Mahanon replied, “but don’t expect me to give up my people.”
“That’s… fair.” Cassandra’s look lost its edge and she glanced away. “You didn’t know how much time we spent looking for her. How much the Inquisition- how I-” she cut herself off and glanced at the dog prancing between both red-haired woman and dark-haired elf. “We have her pet. But where is the Grey Warden herself?”
Malika had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She watched as Mahanon hesitantly darted his eyes in the direction deep into the temple.
“No!” Leliana shouted. “Oh, for the love of Blessed Andraste, no.” She sprinted inside.
Everyone ran to catch up to her before being firmly separated by demons and more rifts. When they met again Leliana was standing still, overlooking a grand and desolated room where a strand of the Breach reached down in the middle. Contrasting green glow of magic and red light of the surrounding rocks threw shadows on her hollow-eyed look.
There was a buzzing feeling under Malika’s skin, a familiar ickiness that had nothing to do with the Mark on her wrist. She recognized the feeling of isana, any dwarva could. A closer look at the red rocks gave way to a deep, unpleasant feeling that crawled around in the back of her throat.
“Careful,” Varric said, laying out an arm to block any further movement. “You don’t want to get anywhere near red lyrium. Trust me.”
Leliana’s dull voice broke through the air. “There’s Grey Warden armour beneath the rubble. Multiple sets. How many were in her cohort?”
“It was just us two,” Mahanon said softly enough that Malika had to step closer. “The last Grey Warden to join was Anders a few years ago and he left just as quickly.”
Varric suddenly sighed.
Cassandra turned to him. “So when Anders left Kirkwall, he was with the Warden. Interesting.”
“Not really. I don’t know what they got up to. Being tied up and interrogated kept me busy.”
“Enough,” Leliana ordered. “We need to do what we came here for and deal with the Breach. Anything else,” she swallowed, “will come later.”
Maxwell set his gloved hands on some piece of not-yet-ruined bannister and tilted his head up. “It looks non-hostile at least. We just point our Marks up and make it go poof?”
“Not quite,” Solas said. “The Breach appears to be in a temporary stasis. In order to close it for good, we will have to change it from its dormant state.”
Which meant more demons. Great.
—
Between the death and dying state- a song. (It plays continuously.)
Mahariel woke up and woke up again. Up from the downy mattress and silk sheets of the Royal Palace’s canopy bed, mouth dry and numb, opening her eyes for the first time a month after Urthemiel’s death. Eyes staring at pale wooden beams as the white noise of a cooking fire crackled in the background, the air still scented of healing potions and magic Asha'bellanar used like a scalpel after she plucked a bare-faced elf maiden and future-king off an Ostagar tower. No face because she was just a da'len back then, throat tasting like decay and blight and lyrium, knees on the ground, choking on a vow she was forced into while two men older and stronger than her lay dead at her feet. The dead heralded her birth always, dead father and dead wolves surrounding the Sabrae gen’vun, the famine of winter driving beasts to consider an elf in labour easy prey.
Mahariel never prayed, not when Leliana taught her the Andrestian chants and custom out of amicable culture exchange, not when Hahren Paivel showed her how to form the words of the gods she belonged to, not to Urthemiel even when she wished with all her heart to heal the dragon of the Blight instead of kill it. Fen’Andrem do not pray; they just run from the Lone Hunter.
She was looking up at the falling sky or maybe down at the dawning abyss. Air cut at her skin as she flew. Emerald light blinded until it was too late and Mahariel knew what would happen a heartbeat before she met the ground.
Bodies, at a high enough velocity, did not bounce. They went splat. Mahariel did not hear a splat, she heard cracking. Then she lay there, oddly naked like a newborn. There was a lot less blood than a normal birth though, from what she could feel trickling out of her anyways. Mahariel desperately focused on breathing despite all the hurt because she had the misfortune to land on her torso instead of her head.
In the distance, Mahariel heard a singular canine howl.