Chapter Text
Breath misting and catching in my throat, I look around to find myself alone. No red templars in sight, and my friends must have long since reached the Chantry by now. But that is odd, isn’t it? There’s no way that wave was the last of the enemy’s forces. Why the hell are they hanging back now?
I get my answer when a serpentine roar resounds from somewhere far above me. That dark mass of horns and scales circles overhead, mouth billowing a crescendo of red, and with a jolt of horror, I realize that it is aiming its next attack at the trebuchet.
I’ve moved too far away from the trebuchet in the fighting. That truth wiggles like a dying earthworm in the back of my mind as I sprint for the massive weapon.
Too late, too late, too late.
Fortunately for me, the attack misses. Unfortunately for me, it lands between me and the trebuchet close enough to make my ears ring. The resulting blast lifts me off my feet and the next thing I know, the sky is a spinning mass of storm clouds and ash above me. The pain in my shoulder is blinding; something stretches and rolls in ways it isn’t supposed to when I try to move it. Probably dislocated. I push the sensation aside and stand. This pain is temporary; I’m minutes from dying anyway.
I just need to pull the switch on the fucking trebuchet and this will all be over.
But as I struggle to leverage myself upright, wincing as weight falls on my injured leg, it becomes evident that I am no longer alone. A gaunt, spidery-limbed silhouette shines black through a wall of roaring flames on the edge of the field, too tall and misshapen to be human.
The Elder One.
On my opposite side, the dragon makes another appearance. It lands only a few meters away in a puff of dislodged dirt and snow. No longer is it reduced to a simple black form in the sky; the up close and personal image is much more horrifying than I ever could have imagined. Its human-like grey flesh clings to its sides like someone reanimated a dragon corpse just after the first layer of scales had rotted off. Its remaining armor is lopsided and jagged-edged, flashing silver in the firelight. Its wings are great and wide with taut skin between the finger bones like a bat’s and four horns spiraling up from its skull like those of a pride demon. As for its size—I am only as big as a single one of its clawed feet. It towers above me, rapier-like teeth bared, before it stops short and releases an ear-splitting scream into the open sky.
“Enough!”
The Elder One descends onto the field from the wall of fire. He looks vaguely like someone tried to sprout templar armor from the inside of someone’s body, then stretched out their limbs and skin until they were tight to bursting. His bare chest is ripped like perforations in a sheet of elastic, exposing pulsing, dripping innards within. His bulk all but cuts off after the bulge of his ribs and his hands more closely resemble branches whose leaves have abandoned them for the winter than human appendages. The most that can be said is that this Elder One had once been human. The remnants of an armored skirt and feathery pauldrons hang crooked on his form. Half a hood drapes over his face. The other half has been ripped away, yielding instead to spikes of red lyrium clawing their way out from under his eyelid. They pulse like an infected wound.
“Pretender. You toy with forces beyond your ken,” the Elder One rumbles in a loud, full voice that echoes far longer than it should. He stops some distance away to glower at me. “No more.”
It takes me a moment to find my voice, although I know it is my only remaining weapon. My dagger has skidded far beyond my reach from the dragon’s blast of flames. If I can just distract the enemy long enough to reach the trebuchet and pull the lever, I can still do as I promised.
“What the hell are you? Why do this?” My voice sounds so small and airy in comparison to the monstrous creatures standing before me. At first, I’m not even sure my voice carries over the rumble of the dragon’s breathing. But the Elder One deigns to answer in time.
“Mortals beg for truth they cannot have. It is beyond what you are. What I was.” The Elder One pauses, flexes fingers that stretch down past where his knees should be. “Know me, know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One. The will that is Corypheus.” His voice never raises above a hiss, a growl, but it runs a chill down my spine all the same. He points a single mangled finger in my direction. “You will kneel.”
In spite of everything, a spark of bitter defiance rises in my stomach, giving strength to muscles quaking with terror and pain. I force my chin to raise.
“I will not.”
It feels like such a futile gesture before monsters that defy every truth I held about the world. Corypheus appears to think so too. He shakes his head with as close to an expression of contempt as he is presumably capable of.
“You will resist. You will always resist. It matters not.” Corypheus raises a spherical object in the palm of his hand, black and patterned with an abundance of striped ridges. It glows the same hue as red lyrium as Corypheus summons its power. “I am here for the Anchor. The process of removing it begins now.”
Whatever magic lies within the orb flares. The Mark, or rather the Anchor, responds to its call and raises my hand of its own accord. Green spews forth from the embedded rift. The resulting sparks burn through my glove in a heartbeat. My arm erupts in searing agony, pulling me closer to Corypheus and the orb by some invisible string. It’s as if the Anchor is trying to rip itself from my body and return to the object, but every time it tries, more of me gets pulled along with it.
“It is your fault, ‘Herald,’” Corypheus sneers. “You interrupted a ritual years in the planning, and instead of dying, you stole its purpose.” He lashes the hand encasing the orb once, resulting in a violent surge of energy that makes me cry out. “I do not know how you survived, but what marks you as ‘touched,’ what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens. And you used the Anchor to undo my work. The gall.”
Another strike of his hand, another surge. This one makes the others seem like puppy nibbles in comparison. A whirl of crimson and green and the lightning purple of my own magic erupts in my hand like spouting lava, and it certainly feels that way. My head vibrates like it might explode and although I watch the world plummet as I fall to my knees, even with my injured leg, a vague tingling is the only indication of impact.
I curl into myself, forcing the Anchor into the curve of my chest, wishing for someone, anyone to please, please, make it stop. An agonized scream tears from my throat. It echoes around the valley like the last dissonant chord of a song. Sobs rack my body when my air runs out and I struggle for breath. How pathetic of an end, crying in the fetal position. But if I can just raise my head enough, look him in the eye…
“What is this thing meant to do?” I gasp.
Corypheus’ expression never changes.
“It is meant to bring certainty where there is none. For you, the certainty that I would always come for it.”
Suddenly Corypheus withdraws the orb. The waves of magic vanish as quickly as they came, leaving only a few crackling aftershocks behind. All of the tension in my body falls away in the absence of agony. I fall forward onto the dirt, arms and legs splayed.
If I can just get to the trebuchet…
I scrabble with my functioning hand in the dirt for purchase. Inch by inch, I drag myself forward. Fuck the gods and fuck the war and fuck this stupid Anchor, I snarl internally, struggling to maintain a shard of equilibrium as my vision swirls. I’m dying, and I’m taking this evil, self-righteous bastard with me.
Finally, Corypheus steps forward. His frown deepens.
“The Anchor is permanent. You have spoiled it with your stumbling,” he growls. He marches forward and before I can even think to flinch, he grabs my cursed hand by the wrist and wrenches me high into the air. My shoulder screams in protest and I sob again, trying in vain to bat the monster’s hand away, but Corypheus holds fast and brings me to eye level.
Corypheus’ breath blasts my face like the whispers of a crowd kneeling in a forgotten temple. It is the exhalation of life in reverse, as if a corpse grew cold on the earth and suddenly drew breath again.
And for the first time, I truly see Corypheus’ face. Pale skin turned orange-tan by the glow of red lyrium, a broad nose and chin that jut out from his face, lips cracked with scars. Almond brown eyes that are completely, unmistakably human.
“I once breached the Fade in the name of another to serve the Old Gods of the empire in person,” Corypheus hisses, his voice lowered but no less threatening. “I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. For a thousand years I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world.”
Our gazes meet, and there is something like a plea there. I’m not sure if it’s his doing or mine.
“Beg that I succeed,” he says, “for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty.”
With a meager flick of his wrist, Corypheus sends me crashing to one side. All the breath is driven from my body as I hit something solid. Wooden. Hand-made. I crane my head to see the silhouette of the trebuchet staring down at me.
Triumph flows into me, true and sweet. I leverage myself upright with a last bout of determination and locate an abandoned sword lying by my feet, and just to my left, the release lever. I grasp the weapon in a single trembling hand. I am not trained with a sword, nor am I in any condition to defend myself, but the message is clear. Come close and I will fight to kill. Corypheus looks almost disappointed.
“So be it. I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation—and god—it requires,” Corypheus laments. “And you. I will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die.”
A far-off blast reaches my ears. A single plume of fire rises on the distant horizon, carried with the wind like a kiss farewell.
They made it out.
With a smile and tears in my eyes, I turn to face Corypheus one last time.
“You are no god, Corypheus, and this world will rise against you. Even if I am not there to see it,” I vow. “You will not touch them so long as I stand.”
I pull the lever.
The stone releases with a loud crack and it flies off into the night. I watch its descent with bated breath. It slams into the distant mountaintop, a single impact bordered on silence, and then the roaring starts.
Tons upon tons of snow and stone barrel down the mountain slopes. It comes as a massive tidal wave, toppling everything in its path and carrying it along as it grows.
The dragon lets out a shriek, grasps Corypheus between its claws, and flies away in a beat of leathery wings. He will live to fight another day. The rest of his troops will not be so lucky.
And neither will I. I don’t bother running; there’s no point. Instead I turn to look where the flare rose up, but there is no light to be found there again. I am carried off my feet a moment later.
A rush of snow fills my ears, my mouth, my nose, encasing every inch of me as it blows me away. Time and direction fade to a whirlwind of cold, but something solid splinters and breaks beneath my back, sending me plummeting down to an abyss. I lose consciousness before I reach the bottom.
The only truth in the world I recognize when sensation returns to my body is that I am definitely not dead.
Both of my daggers are gone. They are buried somewhere under tons of snow, precisely how I should be. Instead I find myself staring up at the abysmally dark roof of a cave. Water droplets plop audibly onto the floor somewhere in the open space. It’s way too damn dark to bother looking.
My left arm is numb. The only indication it is even still attached to my torso is the light spilling from the Anchor. It bathes the space for several meters in any direction, but no more. Glancing at the useless appendage reveals my shoulder to be wrenched partway backwards.
My hand is another matter altogether. The burns from Corypheus’ botched removal attempt did more damage than I thought. Red and black boils cover every inch of skin around the Anchor, charred beyond recognition. At this point, the appendage looks like it belongs on darkspawn rather than a person. I should probably be glad I can’t feel it anymore.
The rest of my limbs appear to be fine apart from the gash on my thigh. The below-freezing temperatures seem to be doing some good from that perspective though; the pain has dulled enough to be manageable. The real problem, however, is breathing. My chest burns like someone is sticking it with a fire poker with every breath. I must have damaged some ribs in the fall. It makes garnering the steam necessary to leverage myself upright a chore.
To borrow a phrase from Varric—
“Well, shit.” The words taste like blood on my tongue.
I manage to get my feet under me and stand with an excess of effort and gasps of pain that would bring every predator in a half-mile radius if I wasn’t the only Maker-forsaken thing left alive. A quick glance around proves that there is only one path left to take: a barely-visible cobblestone arch built into one wall. Every other direction is blocked by boulders and freshly-fallen snow. The ground beneath me even feels paved, like someone tried to make a path here and gave up long ago.
The structure of the arching passage feels familiar somehow. I stagger up to its edge, brushing my fingers along the harsh surface, when I realize it closely resembles some of the tunnels we traversed to reach the Temple of Sacred Ashes. This is certainly one that has not been used in decades; I must have fallen into it when the avalanche hit.
Lucky me.
At least if this cavern is actually part of some unfinished travel passage, there is a good chance that it exits out onto the mountains somewhere. I hold on to that hope and start walking.
Progress is slow. Agony rips at my body with every breath, every step, growing worse by the minute. Despair latches alongside it like a parasite. Every step takes so much effort, exacerbated by the cold slowing my movements, and the prospect of ever reaching warmth again feels impossibly far out of reach. The ice-encrusted cavern walls seem to leech away at my life, whispering of sweet release into my ear.
It would be so much easier just to lie down and go to sleep. Your eyes are so heavy, my dear. Just sit down. You’d only be resting a moment.
All this hurting would be over if you just let go. You have suffered enough.
No one would even notice. They won’t find your body for months. You saw how easily they left you; you don’t matter to them.
Just say yes and all your pain will sink away.
Just say yes.
“Shut up.” My voice echoes, hoarse and broken, around the cavern. I keep walking. Despair will not take me today.
I’m not sure whether the walk takes minute or years. Slowly I start to notice more wooden scaffoldings propped up in the passage and the occasional cobweb-riddled tool scattered about. The path winds and turns before finally opening back up into another cavern. The light of the Anchor sprawls across abandoned, empty supply carts, piles of disturbed rock, and beyond it all, an archway with swirling blue-black beyond it.
I squint against the cold and tiredness. Sure enough, the open wind whips over the mouth of the cavern, whistling across the stone like a lullaby. I stagger to its edge and peer out, panting hard as I lean into the passage wall.
What little hope I had in my heart falls away.
A full-blown blizzard rages outside. Snow rails against the evergreens, flying horizontal in a wicked sharp wind. Knee-high drifts of powder lie just beyond the cave entrance and they probably only get deeper. No moonlight dares to encroach on the blackened clouds blanketing the sky and there are no torches or campfires. None of Corypheus’ men, and none of the Inquisition’s.
My legs buckle out from under me. Silent tears dribble onto my face, burning as they attempt to freeze on my cheeks. I battle between the urge to cry and a desire to keep my broken ribs from hurting anymore. Crying wins. Silent tears turn to a single choking sob, which in turn hitches in my throat and yields to a coughing fit that makes the world blur in pain. I simply lean back against the wall and let it come.
I have no weapons and no heat. My body is shaking violently enough already and my teeth jumble and chatter. I won’t make it more than half a mile in that blizzard before I freeze to death. If civilization was that close, I would be able to see signs of it from here.
But there is a path to survival. One that I have buried and denied and ripped to pieces every time the urge arose. Something that sends fear rippling through the darkest parts of me.
I have magic.
Earlier today I made a choice to sacrifice myself for the Inquisition. Now I have to make another one. Do I freeze here and say I have done enough, or do I become a monster to fight another day? Is survival worth embracing the part of yourself weakest to corruption and violence?
—Buried in warmth but still shivering, shaking. Drumbeats like a mantra on the door. The window. The closet. Under the bed. No, will be found. Will be dragged. Will be hurt. Push a wood frame to the door, a barricade. No, eyes like molten pits of stone, broad and hard, demanding, you will respect me or you will bleed. When he breaks in, I don’t feel like I have a body anymore.—
The tears keep rolling. I screw my eyes shut tight, and I summon fire. Rage will not take me today.
My magic is weak from disuse. At first, I think it lost entirely in the depths of exhaustion. But faintly, like a flower petal fluttering onto an open palm, or like poison in white wine, warmth expands within my chest and spreads. Fire becomes a shield. A temporary one; it flickers with every choking breath, but it holds.
I rise and step out into the storm.
The journey is a blank space of white and cold. My leg stops hurting after a while. An impenetrable fog overtakes my brain, making judgement and rational thought fuzzy. The magic emanating from my bones is the only sensation that keeps me tethered to the earth. I just have to keep trudging through an endless sluggish sea.
Eventually I realize I can’t remember why I was out here in the first place.
Thoughts descend like lightning flashes, bold and disorienting in a way that makes my vision spin. My brain cannot process each one before it bounds on to the next, leaving instead the inescapable compulsion to listen.
You’re going the wrong direction.
You’re too clever to make this mistake.
You’ve already come so far, shame to waste it.
We can give you the power to find your friends again.
We can show you.
You just have to let us in.
My magic flickers. It sounds oh, so tempting. Just the prospect of sitting in a warm tent again, of being able to bend my stiffened fingers with ease, of being able to sleep…
But something does not sit right. Unease roots in the pit of my stomach. There is no one in this wilderness but me and I will find my way to salvation on my own. Pride will not take me today.
A massive gust of wind blows me off course. I careen sideways, arm cast out wide for something to grab onto, but it seizes nothing and I hit the ground hard. The warm barrier within my skin dies in a gasping wisp of breath. My vision begins to fade with it.
Something howls in the distance.
I awaken to the sound of footsteps crunching on snow. A fog overtakes my senses as I pull my head from its place amongst the white fluff, making the world glitter and glare under the light of the midday sun. It’s funny; part of my brain acknowledges that the storm must have passed, but I cannot remember the turmoil.
Standing before me, head lowered and stiff-legged, is a wolf. It is far beyond the realm of any normal beast; even stooped forward, its head easily tops seven feet. Its fur is black as ink on a blank page, long, and feathery, buffeting in the breeze. Six blood red eyes blink in syncopation above me.
I rise to my feet to find that one of my arms does not want to respond to my brain’s commands and my right leg threatens to buckle when I step forward. Weird. I limp closer to the strange wolf, curiosity sparking.
Logic would dictate that the wolf turn and run. It did not attack while I was resting, so it is clearly not looking for food or a fight, and I doubt a creature such as this is well acquainted with people. But it remains still as death as I approach it, eyes impenetrable. Best to remain cautious anyway.
“Dirth’lhasa, iras ma in mala shiral, Fen’leth? Ma’nedan?” The words are foreign on my tongue, yet they emerge with ease and a feeling like coming home.
The wolf’s head shifts slightly to one side. I reach out a tentative hand and draw closer, closer, until I am barely a breath away from brushing the top of the wolf’s head. It flinches away at the last moment, ears pinned back, teeth bared, and silky tail lashing in the snow. The glares of all six eyes descend at once.
“Atishan, lethallen. Ir Falon’fen, ir Falon’fen.”
I pause, watching the subtle shifts as some of the tension leaves the muscles in the wolf’s shoulders. Its ears flick forwards again, although they twitch occasionally. Still nervous. I lean forward to gingerly rest my hand on the fur between the wolf’s ears. It doesn’t back away this time.
With a laugh of delight, I gently stroke the top of its head, incredulity growing within me that this wild creature is actually letting me pet it. And if I’m not mistaken, its tail wags ever so slightly.
“Dirth’ma vir vhenasan?” I ask, keeping my voice soft. Something tells me this wolf is as much a stranger in these woods as I am. It must call someplace beyond the mountains home.
The wolf backs away and turns, then swivels its great head over one shoulder to peer back at me. Its tail lashes once, impatient. Waiting for me to follow. I do, slowly, hindered by a limp I can’t explain. Blood pools on my thigh from a broad, angry gash. How had I not noticed that before?
The wolf strides along a path between two rocky outcrops arching overhead towards one another but never quite touching. The sun hovers over the mountain pass beyond and casts long shadows between the wolf and me, black melding to white and gold at the edges.
My companion stops to wait for me on the other side of the passage. Those six crimson eyes never leave my face, something like anxiety written in their depths. Is the wolf worried about something?
Sunlight dapples my vision until everything fades to a film of white. A voice carries over the wind that is not my own, seemingly not spoken aloud but heard nonetheless.
Dar then, Lethallan. Suledin.
The storm is back.
I don’t know why that thought is the first to occur when I find myself lying face-down in a snow drift. Perhaps I had a dream about it, but the memory escapes me. I must not have been out long; the blizzard still rages and howls like a grieving mother, but only a thin layer of snow has accumulated over my hands, currently numb and lying lax before my face.
Suledin, I tell myself. An elven word my father said alienage elves used as a battle cry in the face of poverty and obscurity among shems. Endure. Right now, shivering violently all over and eyelashes freezing together with snowflakes, it seems to be my only option.
I roll onto my back, curl inwards, and sit up. One thing at a time. Getting my legs under me is harder. I have to hook my only functioning arm, now numb below the elbow, beneath my right knee to leverage it into place. Then comes standing. Push one breath out, straighten your legs. One breath in to stop the world from fading to a collage of black dots. Three shaky breaths until the world stops tilting. Four. A single step forward into the storm.
I gaze around with bleary eyes. I can’t tell if I am still going the same direction I started in. With all the endless plains of white, I might as well be wandering in circles. The thought brings a spark of amusement in me. I am too tired to laugh.
The only distinguishable landmark is a pair of cliff faces jutting out from the mountainside to form a path. Something about the sight feels…familiar, although I cannot place how. I stagger towards it.
My bad leg wobbles and fails partway there, sending me to one knee. I dig my elbow into it to nudge it upright once again. I stumble the last distance between the rocky outcrops and, squinting through the horizontal wave of precipitation, spot two figures struggling my way up the slope. One of them registers as a flash of purple, the other red and shining gold.
“There! It’s her!” That’s Cullen’s voice. It must be. The golden form raises a hand as a visor to shield against the wind.
“Thank the Maker.” The voice is feminine, but low and sharp. Cassandra.
Both take off at a sprint to reach me on the lip of the overpass.
They came back for me. That single thought brings more comfort than any cozy fireplace in the world. This time, when I falter, I let myself fall. The world fades to a blur and a haze of humming noises for several moments until something warm and solid replaces the snow against my back.
“Ellana! Lavellan, can you hear me?” Worried. Cullen’s voice is worried. His form stoops over mine, pressed close to shelter me from the wind. I want to answer, tell him that I feel warmer than I have in a long time, but my mouth refuses to respond with anything other than shallow, shivering breaths. Something soft drapes around my shoulders. When I look up, the fuzzy red mass around Cullen’s shoulders is gone.
“She’s frozen half to death,” Cassandra gasps from somewhere to my left. My head feels too heavy to turn and look for her. “We must get her back to camp.”
My vision swoops dangerously to one side as I am lifted into the air. A moment later my cheek presses against Cullen’s shoulder, my breath misting on his neck. A shiver races up his body as my chilled face rests against his skin. He takes off at a brisk pace back down the mountain.
“You’re safe, Ellana. Just hold on. Please hold on,” Cullen murmurs against my forehead. Hot breaths wisp against my cheeks, short huffs of relief before their warmth fades.
I try to keep my eyes open, I really do. But Cullen's heartbeat drums steadily like a mantra: you're safe, you're safe, you're safe. And for the first time in years, I have no fear of dreams when I let my eyes drift shut.