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Bad Moon Rising: a Dragon Age short story


Josie
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A Dragon Age fanfiction I wrote to establish the backstory for my forum, Dragon Age: Noire. Characters are mix of Dragon Age canons and my own, as well as nods to some of my buddys' characters.

 

Thanks to the lovely @Freya for helping me get this posted. :)

 

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

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Bad Moon Rising

Prologue: The Bad Moon Arising

Someone insignificant, somewhere in The Free Marches

He really should have been getting back. They would be waiting on the supplies he’d traded for.

 

But as soon as they took the packages from his hands, he knew they would forget about him. He was just a living ghost to everyone at home. And although he had come to accept that this was all he would ever amount to, some days it was more difficult to bear than others. Some days, he needed to be alone so that he could feel alive.

 

That wasn’t too much to ask for, was it? At times, he wasn’t so sure. Before he had the chance to doubt himself, he veered off course and into the woods.

 

The trees were painted in a soft light, the shadows cast by the canopy gentle as silk. The forest watched him and his mount weave through it with a flirtatious indifference. But he loved these woods despite it in the way all little boys loved things: undyingly, unconditionally, and with an endless reverence for all the intricate mysteries the trees and the grass and the bushes had knowledge of but would never share with him.

 

He could get lost in this place. In this feeling. He could let the forest engulf him, swallow him whole. He thought he might have been happier that way, caught in this eternal shade, this place between waking and dream.

 

And maybe that was exactly what was happening now. Off in the distance, barely distinguishable in the fluttering shadows, he noticed a leaning doorway. Its blackness was complete and infinite, and he was drawn to it as a moth was to a flame.

 

As he drew nearer, more shapes began to fill in around the opening. Fallen pillars- slabs of rock crawling with moss and vines. Dimly, he realized that this was the remains of some structure. A temple, perhaps.

 

And again, he thought that he really should have been getting back. He looked over his shoulder, stupidly expecting to see the edge of the woods just behind him.

 

But it wasn’t. All at once he was right before the slanted archway, and he could not have said if it had taken him hours to get there or just minutes. This place was outside of time, or maybe the entire world was only holding its breath for him.

 

He dismounted and his animal huffed at him. She snorted when he hobbled her, and stamped her hooves after he went inside.

 

Dirt filtered down from the ceiling in delicate streams. In the thin shafts of light that penetrated the ruins danced motes of dust, and just at the corners of his vision he could see the hurried flight of birds moving from one perch to the other, disturbed by his presence.

 

He really should have been getting back.

 

The remains of the grand hall were lined with forms that suggested entrances into other rooms. He carefully went to them, even though he could all too easily imagine the silent monsters that might lurk within. After all these years, something unpleasant had undoubtedly come to call it home. But aside from his own breathing and the obscured beating of feathers, he heard nothing that would allude to something sinister in the shadows.

 

When he peered around the eroded doorframe, something was there though. It was tucked away in the far corner of the room, behind a stone panel which had sunken partially into the earth. It looked like it had once tried to be hidden from view, but the way the dim light caught the curve of the object had it crying out to be seen.

 

I’ve been lost for centuries. Don’t leave me here alone, he could almost imagine the object whispering to him. Or did he really hear that? He wasn’t certain, and knew he really should be getting back.

 

Carefully, he crept through the room- around the mounds of earth that had buckled up over the years to form little hills with their own precious ecosystems- to stand before the object. It was made of metal and had somehow been forged into a perfect sphere. Though dusty, its surface was otherwise unblemished and entirely smooth. The thing was just slightly smaller than a head, and, just like a head, he felt it stir beneath his fingers when he touched it.

 

It was just a quick touch. A testing touch. The kind one might give a dog if they were afraid it would bite.

 

But it didn’t bite. No, again he got the feeling that it yearned for some connection. It wanted to be found, to be held again.

 

He placed an open palm on the object and brushed his hand around its curve, and thought that he should really be getting back.

 

With this.

 

He’d never heard of such a thing. As far as he knew, no one in the world had. What might they be able to learn from it? It had been hidden at one point in time, so it must have been something important. Something that wasn’t meant for everyone. His heart pounded at the possibilities, too large for him to comprehend.

 

Someone smarter had to take a look, and he knew just the person. But how could he show this to them? The sphere was attached to a granite pedestal- he and ten other men wouldn’t have been strong enough to lift it.

 

Frowning, he tested the strength of the object’s attachment to the stone- and it came right off in his hands. With a pleasant smile of surprise on his face, he tucked the sphere against his body and turned to leave the room.

 

Because he really should have been getting back.

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Chapter 1

Silence, somewhere in The Free Marches

Silence had seen it in the way he looked around that he felt watched. But it was like he hadn’t cared. He’d had this stupid smile plastered on his face the entire time, like everything was all right in the world.

 

Soon enough, it would be.

 

She’d watched him enter empty-handed and come back with something, and she didn’t stop him when he left. Although the qunari did not perceive him as being a threat, it felt safest to just let him go. He didn’t have what she was looking for.

 

But the fact that he had apparently found some relic did give her hope for her mission. Once he was out of sight, she hurried inside and remained there- searching to no avail- until night fell. She found a sheltered corner, and after making a small fire for herself and eating a modest dinner, she went to sleep.

 

In the Fade, she went to Him alongside her brothers and sisters to report her findings and no one bowed as low or as long as she did. No one else loved Him like she did.

 

But He listened to the others first, because she was only dirt to Him. She saw it in His eyes when they were fixed upon her: she was not what He wanted. She was only a tool. He thought she was too stupid to recognize that, but Silence had been looked at that way her whole life and knew that look for what it was. She didn’t care. She could change His mind. And He’d saved her, just like He was going to save the world.

 

So how He looked at her didn’t matter. All that mattered was that He did look, even if she came very last.

 

“Nothing,” she told Him. It was the same news everyone else had given him, and she saw the disgust in his piercing gaze. Saw it curling on his lip.

 

“But saw something else,” she tried to explain in her imperfect Tevene, holding out her hands and shaping them over an invisible sphere. “This big. Smooth on surface.”

 

His eyes widened, and the interest that sparked there made her heart soar. If Silence had ever learned to smile, she would have then.

 

“Do you have it, child?” He demanded.

 

“No,” she answered, feeling her stomach drop to her feet. “Elf took it.”

 

Silence expected Him to rage at her, to kill her, to do anything but what He did next. With a terrible hunger burning in His eyes, He said: “Find it.”

 

He banished her from the dream before she had a chance to react.

 

Waking with a jolt, Silence gathered what little provisions she had with her, made a torch for herself, and left. By the light of the fire, she looked for the hart’s tracks leading away from the elven ruins. It took her fifteen minutes of careful searching before she spotted them, but after that they were easy to follow.

 

And she followed until her feet ached, until the torch had gone out, until the sun was peeking up over the horizon and decorating the sky with gentle fingers of pink and blue. She picked up her pace then. If her quarry had stopped to rest, then he would likely be on the move again soon. It would be best if she caught up to him by then.

 

Catch up she did, though it was several hours later than she’d hoped and there were far more elves than she had expected. He hadn’t been alone: he’d gone back to his camp.

 

The woods were sparser here and didn’t allow for proper concealment against those kinds of numbers. It would be impossible for her to sneak into the camp and try to steal the object.

 

Not that she was that stealthy anyway. . .

 

She didn’t have long to consider her options. The more time she spent trying to decide on what to do, the greater her chances of getting discovered were. Silence had heard tales of the Dalish and what they did to outsiders, and although whatever they could put her through was nothing compared to what He would do to her, she still did not wish to deal with such suffering.

 

But even though she knew time was running out, the qunari couldn’t quite bring herself to get to action yet. She sat as still as she could with her back against the trunk of the tree and just listened to the sounds of the camp waking. She heard a baby crying, tired voices conversing with each other in a strange language, the sounds of breakfast being fried. It was hard to tell over the smell of wet earth and leaves, but she thought it might have been eggs and had to ignore the way her stomach turned with hunger.

 

Pressing her lips together, she held her open palm out before her and watched a small sun blossom there. It expanded in size at an alarming rate, but she had already twisted and chucked it into the camp. It exploded with an unearthly roar, and the sounds of a pleasant morning turned to screams and anguish and chaos.

 

Except for the baby.

 

The baby kept crying.

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Chapter 2

Ser Ganon de Jivres, Kirkwall

The Kirkwall Ser Ganon de Jivres had returned to was forever changed, destroyed by a desolation the city had been having quiet, hungry nightmares of for years. Corpses were in the streets. Lone children- naked, pale bodies covered in dirt- walked through the plazas. Homes had their roofs caved in. Doors were broken down on the ones otherwise intact, to get at the modest treasures inside. He tasted his men’s unease in the thin air, and hadn’t blamed them.

 

The Chantry was gone.

 

In place of it in Kirkwall’s skyline, there had only been a fine line of smoke.

 

“Where do we go now?” one of them had broken the silence, voice wavering.

 

“There’s nowhere to go back to,” another had mumbled.

 

He’d said with the gentleness one used when putting a child to sleep: “Shh. It will be all right.”

 

He wouldn’t allow any other alternative.

 

***

 

Along the way back to the Chantry’s grave, the eyes of every adult survivor lurking in the shadows had grown wide with terror or black with suspicion as he and his Templars approached. But no one said anything.

 

They’d encountered two Templars attempting to break up a fight between far more citizens on the path through the Gallows. The fight had fizzled out at the sight of a contingent of mounted units, and, sensing their opportunity, the Templar duo retreated and joined their brothers amidst indignant cries.

 

“Cowards!”

 

“You were supposed to protect us!”

 

“Traitors!”

 

“How could you let her go?”

 

“Liars!”

 

Sweating from head to toe, the rescued Templars had walked with their eyes fixed on the ground.

 

***

 

Up in the markets, a battered Templar had heatedly been defending a wounded mage against four men with low quality swords.

 

Ser Ganon had coolly strung his bow and shot one of the aggressors in the thigh. His wail of pain and surprise provided enough distraction for the Templar to stab one of his attackers in the chest, and by then the other two got smart and started running.

 

He’d let them.

 

The defending Templar had turned to check on the mage, falling on his knees, practically weeping.

 

“Come with us,” Ser Ganon told him, dismounting beside them to offer up his horse.

 

***

 

Hanged along the steps up to Hightown had been an abundance of mages, Templars, and seemingly normal people. Birds pecked at their eyes and mouths, and dogs waited gloomily beneath their hovering feet.

 

***

 

The Chantry had been turned to rubble. They’d contemplated its smoldering remains in reverent silence until a nobleman called out from a nearby window: “Oh, thank Andraste you’ve returned! Come in, please! Come in!”

 

And so they had.

 

***

 

They’d been allowed to help themselves to the kitchen, and they would have a bed to sleep in so long as they’d fetched the linens themselves. While the others had eaten and gone to bed, Bran Cavin had told Ser Ganon what had befallen the city in his absence. But mostly he’d talked about how there were people looking to break into his home every day now, and how things were beginning to stink, and thank goodness his servants had taken care of the shopping just the day before everything went down. Could you imagine starving- starving after surviving all that?

 

***

 

The next morning, Ser Ganon and those gathered had gone about removing the dead from the streets. They’d checked the mountain of rock that had been their home for signs that the embers might reignite into another fire, and had looked for survivors in the ash. Throughout the city, they’d searched for other Templars and mages and brought them to safety. By the end of the day, their number had doubled.

 

On the second day, they’d worked to catch the looters and shut down the riots. It went relatively well until someone cut off a thief’s hand, and they were put right back where they’d started with the unrest.

 

But by the third day, some of the citizens of Kirkwall had begun to see that the remnants of the Chantry were trying to restore peace and came to offer and ask for aid.

 

***

 

The days stretched into years.

 

Three had come to pass by the time the Seeker arrived.

 

Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast was a hard woman who was extremely short of temper, and imposing in her pious fervour. The first time Ser Ganon met her, she was spitting like a cat. She barged in the Cavin’s home in a huff, asking questions.

 

“Varric. Tethras,” she snarled through gritted teeth, “Do you know him?”

 

“Of him,” he said as though he did not have a very angry woman in front of him who looked as though throttling people to death was her favorite means of relaxation.

 

Do you know where he is?” she shouted so loudly and suddenly it made almost everyone jump. Everyone but him, of course.

 

“No. Would you like help in finding him, Lady Seeker?”

 

She gave him a fleeting look of ugly doubt before admitting: “Yes.”

 

Ser Ganon personally joined the search alongside her, and, after finding the author within an hour and a half, they parted ways again. The next time they met, it was as though she was an entirely different person. He saw a woman who was disheartened, all the fight fizzled out of her. This was as vulnerable as she ever allowed herself to be. She despised it, but was too tired to do anything about it. It was plain in the expression on her face as she leaned over the table, backlit by a glowing fire.

 

“You weren't looking for her?” she asked, quiet and hurting.

 

“No,” he said with a small shake of his head, watching her carefully. “My goal was to help reestablish some semblance of normalcy and safety. Hawke was either gone by the time I got here, or didn't share the same ideal and kept her distance.”

 

“Would she do that?” the Seeker asked, looking at him hopefully.

 

“I don't know.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I never met her, personally.” In the same breath, he uncrossed his arms and said: “Lady Seeker, if I may: why is it you seek Hawke?”

 

She looked back to the table and didn't speak for a while. The pregnant pause ended when she let out a heavy sigh and, straightening, turned to face him.

 

The look on her face said she didn't like what she was about to say, and didn't want to bring it up. But she told him anyway: “It is no secret that Thedas is on the brink of war. Divine Justinia has sanctioned the reformation of the Inquisition, and I was hoping Hawke would stand with us. I was hoping Hawke would… lead us. I fear she is our only hope in preventing a full scale war.”

 

“And with her gone, you cannot extend this offer.”

 

“Precisely, Ser Ganon. I tell you this because you are a mage hunter, and seem to have a good heart, and to have remained loyal. I would ask that you find Hawke in the name of the Inquisition and the Divine and make this offer.”

 

She had come closer to him as she said all this, and peered up into his scarred face now. She didn't look hopeful or pleading. The Seeker was asking him because she had no one else to turn to.

 

Ser Ganon examined her intently, as though he was committing every line of her face to memory. When he looked her in the eyes, he raised his chin a small fraction and decided: “She will be found.”

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Chapter 3

Silence, the Hinterlands

“Very good,” He said to her, pleasure in every syllable. Her God looked her in the eyes in a way He never had before, His own hungry and glowing. The sight of His face took her breath away, and she felt like weeping tears of joy. “Take the device to the heart Ferelden’s Hinterlands. There, I have a disciple waiting.”

 

All she could do was nod in reply. As He leaned back, straightened to His full height, she felt herself slipping from the warm confines of His mind and could have cried for the absence of His light.

 

***

 

Escaping from the Free Marches was made easy by the chaos that ran rampant through its veins. If anyone stopped her or gave the qunari woman a second look, more often than not she could get her way out of them without speaking a single word. After locking eyes with her, most decided it would be better not to start anything.

 

Ferelden, by contrast, was much more difficult to travel through, and its people were not so easily intimidated.

 

***

 

She had a heavy limp by the time she made it to the Hinterlands, and entered its woods. Her garb was covered in blood and dirt, and despite the fact that her hair was a wild mess and she was gulping down breaths like a suffocating fish she carried herself like a queen.

 

The terrain was getting rockier, and to the south and west were mountains. The forest was choked with trees and underbrush, inhabited only by the dead. Looking over her shoulder, she decided she had put enough distance between herself and her pursuers that she could afford to extend her breather a little while longer.

 

Leaning against the rough trunk of a tree, she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to its bark and gratefully drank in the cool night breeze.

 

The snapping of a twig pulled her from her reverie.

 

Spinning quickly to confront the source of the sound, Silence tripped and fell. The bolt of lightning she had prepared for the adversary fired and missed entirely, and the brightness that lanced through the dark was blinding. Stars floated in front of her eyes, but she bit her lip and held her breath and when she cast her next spell at the approaching figure she hit her mark.

 

It took her a little bit before she was able to get up and take a closer look at what it had been, but by then she was hearing voices in the woods.

 

They weren’t in her head and they weren’t that of spirits- or so she assumed- because the words she was able to make out were ones she couldn’t understand. The humans had caught up.

 

Silence moved around the other side of the tree and put her back to it. Holding her breath, she waited to see if they would pass her by.

 

But they only came closer, whispering to each other. She heard the word “corpse.”

 

And then some idiot dropped out of one of the nearby trees, landing lightly on his feet and addressing the men searching for her.

 

“Are you looking for that mage?”

 

“Yes,” one of the men answered.

 

But the other one called out: “Got her!” He’d come sniffing too near and found her, and he had one hand on her wrist and the other on the hilt of his sword.

 

Silence jerked her arm away, and instinctively raised the other to shield herself from the sword that was flashing through the air. Her bid for freedom was successful, and knocked her attacker off balance- so his sword took off only half her hand instead of the whole thing.

 

High and furious, her scream sounded peculiar to her own ears.

 

She was still screaming when she brought her good hand down on the man’s face and baked his brains with a fistful of lightning. When she turned her rage onto the dead man’s companion, she was roaring. He probably died as soon as her lightning struck him, but even after he’d fallen onto the ground he was kicking and dancing, teeth chattering.

 

The next object of her rage was just a kid, and the lightning fizzled out in her palm.

 

Help,” she demanded, tucking the ragged edge of her ruined hand in the crook of her breast.

 

Silence could see him thinking it over.

 

But he made the right choice in the end, and waved for her to follow after him.

 

***

 

She tiredly waved away the tea he was trying to offer her. It’d been his only cup.

 

Neither one of them said a thing, and the quiet that stretched between them was strange. Not quite calm. But not entirely uneasy either.

 

“Bad times,” Silence warned him softly, staring into the fire that he had conjured. “Good to have friends.”

 

He nodded, but she knew right away that he didn’t understand her meaning. “It hasn’t been safe around here since the Blight and all.”

 

“No,” she said firmly, “You. Should go from these lands.”

 

Silence made eye contact with him, but didn’t wait for him to reply before getting to her feet and leaving.

 

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Chapter 4

Ser Ganon de Jivres, Kirkwall

Hawke’s estate was, surprisingly, intact. He’d tried knocking on the door on the off chance that he would get a reply, and, even more surprisingly, a maid eventually came to answer.

 

“Hawke’s gone, and no, I don’t know where!” she said, opening the door just wide enough so that she could stick her head out. The woman narrowed her eyes and stuck her chin out at him.

 

Ser Ganon’s eyes wandered to the empty crack in the door, his whole body seeming to list to the side a few degrees as he boredly peeked inside.

 

“May I please come in?”

 

“What for?” she snapped quickly. “I haven’t let all the others in, so why should I let you?”

 

He looked down at her and said: “Because I asked nicely.”

 

The lady’s eyes narrowed to such a degree that it seemed impossible she could actually see out of them, and then her face broke out into a grin. She threw her head back and laughed and let the door creak open.

 

“All right, but don’t you go taking anything, you hear me?”

 

“I’m afraid that might be a problem, ma’am,” he said, stepping inside.

 

Her look of deep skepticism returned immediately, and she moved to put herself right in front of him.

 

Why?” she asked, poking him in the chest with a bony finger.

 

“I’m looking for blood.”

 

“Blood?”

 

He nodded lightly, eyes wandering off to a far corner of the entry hall. “Would there happen to be an article of clothing about which she-?”

 

“No,” the old woman said sharply, drawing Ganon’s attention back to her. “She wasn’t stupid. Besides, it’s been years.

 

“Wasn’t?” he asked, arching a brow.

 

Isn’t.

 

Tilting his head and sighing softly out his nose, his gaze was on the move again, fixed on something that wasn’t there.

 

“I didn’t think so. It’s for that reason I need to find her,” he said coolly.

 

“You and everybody else, pal,” she grumbled, throwing a withered hand in the air and turning away from him.

 

“Oh?”

 

“What do you mean ‘oh’? Everyone is looking for her. I want to know where she went too, you know. Little miss thing forgot to give me my final paycheck, and with things the way they are I. . .” she sighed the rest of her complaint away, like it didn’t matter.

 

“Is that what you’re still here for, ma’am?” he asked after her, remaining in place as she tottered off.

 

“What?”

 

“Looking for a paycheck?”

 

“Yes. And no. This is pretty much my home now. I don’t have anywhere else to go. She took all her gold with her, and I don’t think she’s coming back. Doubt she’d mind.”

 

“Probably not,” he softly agreed, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Would you like help looking for a stash anyway?”

 

She stamped her foot and turned on her heel to narrow her eyes at him again. Pointing a finger at him and pursing her lips, she said: “You’re a naughty one.”

 

“Guilty, ma’am.”

 

Again, she threw her head back and laughed a laugh that looked like it started in her toes and worked its way up and out.

 

“You think there is a single stash I haven't found by now?”

 

“You never know, ma’am. I am very good at finding things.”

 

“Yeah, kid, all right,” she chuckled, waving him forward, “Come on.”

 

***

 

As it turned out, there was no stash of gold to be found after all. But whilst searching Hawke’s quarters, he had spied two things useful in his hunt: white wax in the fireplace, and a white feather on the windowsill. While neither thing were extraordinary on their own, together they lent to the possibility that Hawke had been in touch with someone from the White Spire. Their letters were sealed in white wax, and they passed them using a specially domesticated breed of corvids which just so happened to be white.

 

The lead was stale at best, but at least he now had a place to start. When Ganon returned to Cassandra with this information, she did not display one ounce of enthusiasm.

 

“No one is still at the White Spire. This does us no good,” she said moodily.

 

“It is an old lead,” he said, “But one still worth looking into. I have a contact in Orlais who might have some information. I will write him-”

 

She shook her head emphatically and interrupted with: “Who?”

 

“My brother. A mage. Still with the Circles. Or the concept of them, at least.”

 

“Then he will likely be present at the Conclave.”

 

She held up a hand for his silence before he had the chance to ask the question.

 

“The Divine is holding a meeting between the mages and the Templars,” she informed him with that same tone of almost perpetual exhaustion, “I am taking the dwarf to her. And now you.”

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Chapter 5

Silence, the Hinterlands

Redcliffe had become a ruin over the past decade, the Hinterlands a garden of undead. It had been hell wading through it all, but at last the castle was in sight, and- strangely- the gates to the city were free of bodies. Once she passed them, it was easy going.

 

So long as she didn’t think about the throbbing in her left hand, and what that might have meant.

 

***

 

The Chantry was hardly more than a pile of rubble. Silence spat on it anyway, and left. There was no place for him to hide here.

 

***

 

It had been a very long time since any of the inns had been capable of housing someone. With their roofs caved in- some of them only a foundation- she hadn’t bothered to search for him there.

 

***

 

All that remained of the ships in the harbor was splinters and driftwood. Passing them by, she headed for the castle in the distance.

 

***

 

As she neared the courtyard, she at last heard voices in a language she could understand.

 

“Father, you don’t have to do this.”

 

“Hush, Felix. What’s done is done.”

 

“Father, no-”

 

But whatever else the son was going to say died on his lips when Silence made it to the gate, wrapping her only intact hand around one of the corroded bars. They were sitting close together around a fire, roasting dinner beneath the sunset.

 

“Who’s that?” the boy asked.

 

Gereon Alexius met her eyes, and looked so tired she thought he’d never get up to allow her entrance. When he spoke, his words were worn and withered: “Silence.”

 

She dipped her head in greeting.

 

With a flick of his wrist, the gate rose enough to allow her to pass under it.

 

“You have the artifact?” he asked.

 

Her eyes narrowed at him defiantly. “Of course.”

 

“Then let me see it.”

 

Silence tottered over to the fire, body aching. With its heat on her belly, she carefully twisted the bag she’d been carrying it in around to her middle. Undoing the buckles, she neatly pulled the object from her rucksack and offered it to Gereon.

 

Taking it from her hands, he whispered: “Fascinating. I’ve heard of these before, but never have I seen one. They’re so rare that even the Imperium does not have one in their collection.”

 

Felix asked the question Silence had never considered: “What is it?”

 

“It is called an Eye of Power,” Alexius explained, neatly seating himself and putting the sphere in his lap. When he ran his hands over it, even from here Silence could feel its hungry energy. “The ancient elves used it to amplify the power of their spells. Some of our old reports also suggest that they could track sources of magic with it as well.”

 

A chill ran down Silence’s spine. Scowling, she sat down in front of the fire and hugged herself.

 

“This is what the Elder One has been looking for,” the younger one mused.

 

“Yes.”

 

“How can you be sure it works?” his son asked.

 

“He has given me instructions on how to-”

 

“Yes, but this is several thousand years old at least, isn’t it? How can you be certain that it still works?”

 

The father looked to her for an answer, but Silence only raised her eyebrows at him and shrugged.

 

***

 

After much trial and error, they eventually made their way to the top of one of the castle’s turrets. Awkwardly looking for someplace to put it, he decided to just set it at the foot of the railing and crouched down behind it.

 

“I need total silence,” he warned. “It is essential I can keep my concentration.”

 

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem, father,” the boy said, casting a sideways glance her way and offering her a short smile. She did not return it.

 

Several minutes passed, during which Gereon simply clamped his hands to the side of the sphere. Eyes closed, he said not a thing and moved not an inch. Nothing appeared to be happening, until finally she saw faint wisps of green floating out from the orb’s exterior. The smoke-like substance appeared to phase in and out of existence every second or so, and its presence always pulled something within her. Made her fingers tingle, and her bones hum.

 

Alexius finally got a handle on it, and the haze stayed.

 

A few moments later, Alexius croaked: “One of you. Open the gates.”

 

And so Silence went to go do just that.

 

When she finally made it down to the courtyard again, she could make out the shapes of people hobbling up to the pathway. She recognized the gait of the undead at once, and felt a cold fear course through her.

 

Was he mad? She craned her neck to look up at the battlements, as though she expected to find the answer there.

 

Frozen, she stood and watched as the undead came closer. Their numbers were growing right before her very eyes- there were already far more than she could count, and the stink was becoming unbearable. Scrunching up her face and fighting her gag reflex, Silence searched for the mechanism to open the gate. Unlike Alexius, she did not have the skill to engage it with only a wave of her hand.

 

She spied it at the edge of the courtyard, and as she crept towards it the corpses reached the gate. But instead of clamboring over each other to try in get in, instead of sticking their bony arms through the bars, they only stood there.

 

And waited.

 

Heart hammering in her throat, she pulled the wheel to open the gate. She’d fully expected the things to come running for her, but they didn’t. They came in slowly- curious, one might even say, if they had any intelligence left to them.

 

Shuddering, once the gate was open she quickly found her way back inside the castle. Getting back to Alexius took some more time, but when she returned to him he was still making use of the Eye. Felix was staring over the ledge, down into the courtyard, pale as a ghost and looking ill.

 

“Father, what are you doing?” he asked weakly.

 

Panting, Silence peered over the edge alongside Felix and saw that the courtyard was almost entirely filled with reanimated corpses.

 

The old man didn’t reply, so Silence answered for him: “Raising an army.”

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Chapter 6

Ser Ganon de Jivres, the Frostback Mountains

They’d just been setting up camp in the foothills of the Frostback mountains when it happened. The ground shook so forcefully beneath their feet that anyone not already on the ground fell, and the world flashed a blinding, violent shade of green. One thousand thunderstorms roared together, so loudly that it made his ears ring long after he’d blinked away the green and regained his footing and turned his eyes to the sky against the flurry of snow that came floating down from the mountain peaks.

 

People were speaking to one another, but he couldn’t hear them through the fluff in his ears. But he didn’t have to in order to know what they were asking, and the look on the Seeker’s face was enough to tell him what had happened. Or at least, what she feared had happened. She dropped everything and took off up the mountain, and, not knowing what else to do, so did everyone else.

 

Except Ganon. He packed up what he could, tied their mounts together, and then headed up the mountain. If this was Kirkwall all over again, they would need their rations.

 

***

 

Kirkwall had nothing on what happened at the Conclave.

 

***

 

There was a survivor, apparently. Cassandra was as furious as Ganon had ever seen her, which wasn’t often in the days that followed the explosion. She stayed behind at Haven, keeping constant watch over the woman’s condition alongside a strange elf apostate. Ganon put his mission to find Hawke temporarily on the sidelines, trying to stem the flow of demons alongside the Templars that had followed them to Ferelden while the Seeker waited for the mage to wake up.

 

Every day, the number of demons grew. The Veil split open before their very eyes and vomited up a countless, hungry army. With each passing hour, they received more and more reports about them. They weren’t just in the mountains any longer. They were in the Hinterlands, if anyone cared to go there. The Emerald Graves. The rifts would only continue to spread, it seemed.

 

And they were helpless to stop them. Soon, there would be no one left to fight the demons. As skilled as they were, the Templars were too few in number to continue the struggle. They would be wiped out before the week was up without help, and none came.

 

***

 

She woke up on the third day, and by then questioning her was less important than rushing her to the Breach- what they had taken to calling the gaping hole in the sky- in an attempt to get her to fix it.

 

Because the elf thought she could, apparently. That was all the explanation he got at their sudden appearance. It was as good an idea as any, and so Ganon rallied what troops remained to stand with the exhausted mage in her attempt.

 

They fought back wave upon wave of demons until the Fade seemed to have no more to offer them. Everyone watched her hold out her hand, saw the Breach tether to her, and the way it completely tore her apart. Her scream was high and shrill and blood curdling. Went on forever. As though it’d been caught in the wind, and carried through the mountains across all the world.

 

It was all that was left of her, but that, too, was only temporary.

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Chapter 7

Vivienne, Val Royeaux

 

By all reports, Val Royeaux’s city center had been overrun on a daily basis by rebel mage and Templar demonstrations, each trying to convince the city to turn against the other. Vivienne had not deigned to grace these meetings with her presence up until now.

 

This had gone on long enough.

 

“My mages are prepared to help defend Val Royeaux-”

 

She watched Fiona shout with a tight smirk on her lips, viewing the spectacle from the plaza’s upper level.

 

“-but only if the Templars are removed from the city! They cannot be trusted, and-”

 

“We would like to change that,” one of them boomed.

 

Brows furrowing, Vivienne tried to pinpoint the speaker- but they had not elevated themselves, and were impossible to pick out from the crowd at this angle because of the way their voice echoed off the buildings.

 

“You do not speak for us!” the Lord Seeker blustered out furiously.

 

“Would that he did, darling,” Vivienne called down from her perch, “That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard in days.”

 

The sea of faces turned to look at her, and Vivienne couldn’t help but to smile as she descended the stairs to join the crowd.

 

“The only chance we have in surviving the terrors of what the Breach has wrought- and whatever caused it,” the people parted before her as water did around a stone in the middle of a river, and she addressed them rather than the mages and Templars, “-is if we stand together. Our differences are-”

 

“Everything!” Fiona and the Lord Seeker said together.

 

“They’re nothing,” Vivienne said sharply, looking at them one after the other.

 

“Changes have to be made on both sides,” the same speaker from before said. He appeared almost right beside her, and she had to wonder if that was his design or if it had only been chance. The man was dressed in Templar armor, and looked like he had once tried to fight a bear with nothing but his face. Unlike Vivienne, he spoke directly to Fiona and the Lord Seeker. “We’ve all made mistakes-”

 

“You call our abuse ‘mistakes'?”

 

“No mistakes have been made!”

 

She started pushing her way through the crowd, and saw the Templar doing the same out of the corner of her eye.

 

“We dealt with them the only way we knew how!”

 

“They Tranquilized my sister!”

 

“-used blood magic on-”

 

They were almost to the platform the Templars had claimed for themselves, but they were too busy screaming at the mages to notice.

 

“-demons in the halls-”

 

“-raped me!”

 

They climbed right up on stage, the Templar offering his arm to her.

 

“-mind control!”

 

“I trusted you!”

 

THAT’S ENOUGH!” she and he shouted together. Vivienne brought the point of her staff to the platform, reminding everyone just exactly who she was.

 

“You dare-?” one of the other Templars on stage started, outraged at this intrusion. He began to draw his sword, but before Vivienne could act the stranger headbutt the aggressor to the ground. It all happened so quickly that she wasn't quite sure if what she had seen, and all she could do was laugh about it.

 

“Your independence will mean little when the Breach has swallowed the world,” he said without skipping a beat.

 

“It means nothing now, dear,” Vivienne said casually before raising her voice to address the crowd: “If you expect the future to be better, then choose your next course of action wisely. It will not be so if you continue to squabble amongst yourselves like toddlers.”

 

“Toddlers would work it out quicker,” the Templar muttered. “And with fewer tears.”

 

“Whoever pulls us out of this mess will not kindly remember the way you all stood on the sidelines whining about your wounds when the apocalypse was on our doorstep.”

 

“Templars are meant to guard Thedas against all magical threats,” the interloper began immediately after, “Ultimatums and conditions are not a part of our vows. Anyone who has forgotten that is no Templar.”

 

Vivienne glanced at the rebel Templars, and saw that his words had struck a chord with them. The Lord Seeker had a pained expression on his face, and looked as though he was having trouble with a bowel movement.

 

No one said anything for a long moment.

 

And then the Lord Seeker grudgingly bit out: “You’re right.”

 

Vivienne arched a brow, and caught her apparent companion casting a sideways peek at her.

 

Seeker Lucius turned to Fiona, raising his chin at the distance between them. “It is time we bring this folly to an end. We will meet at sundown at a location of your choosing, Fiona.” He looked over his shoulder at his men, and waved an arm for them to follow. He leaned in to say something to one of them, and then they were all trudging off the platform.

 

Looking flustered, Fiona barked: “Fine.”

 

“Glad you could see reason, dear,” Vivienne said, watching Fiona gather her mages with narrowed eyes.

 

The Templar beside her let out a sigh of resignation.

 

“What?” she demanded of him without looking his way.

 

“I needed to ask her something,” he laughed. Well, that was what Vivienne took the sound for. It was low and rough. More like a cough, but he didn’t appear to have come down with a sudden cold.

 

“What?” Vivienne asked again.

 

“If she knew the whereabouts of my brother. A mage. Anerian Konowa.”

 

“He’s one of mine,” Vivienne informed him matter-of-factly, inspecting him more carefully now. He certainly was. . . large for an elf. And most definitely human. Half-brothers, maybe?

 

“Is he alive?” he wanted to know, voice muffled by the hand running down his bearded mouth.

 

“Why shouldn’t he be?” Vivienne countered.

 

“I thought-”

 

But Vivienne never got to learn what he thought (probably for the better), because just then an arrow whistled through the air and landed with a thunk between them.

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Chapter 8

Ser Ganon de Jivres, Val Royeaux

The letter had been addressed to a certain “Headbuttsy McBeefcake,” and had contained a warning about the Lord Seeker. But in order to obtain the information, it seemed as though the author wished them to run through a series of errands. Ser Ganon shared this with Vivienne immediately.

 

“Of course he’s up to something,” she scoffed, “Isn’t it obvious? He changed his mind far too quickly. You weren’t that convincing.”

 

The corners of his mouth twitched and he nodded absently at her, eyes glued to the letter.

 

“It could be a fake,” they mused together.

 

Ganon raised his eyes but not his head, looking at her from beneath his brows. “But what if it’s not?”

***

 

“You’re late!” the elf woman shouted.

 

Smirking, Vivienne assured her: “I’m never late.”

 

“The point of being here is. . .?” he questioned.

 

“The Lord Seeker is planning on killing Fiona,” the elf blurted out. Her eyes looked a bit too big for her head, and she had a wild look about her. Didn’t seem like she could sit still.

 

Ganon regarded her with a raised brow, and asked: “How?”

 

“How do you know?” Vivienne snorted.

 

“Listen here, vinegar tits,” the elf said, raising her chin. “I got people.” She extended a finger to poke Vivienne in the chest. “Well, Red Jenny’s got-”

 

Vivienne caught the elf’s finger and squeezed it.

 

“Heeeyyyoow!” Or bent it back, judging by the way the elf yowled in pain. “What the fuck’d you bring her here for, huh? This one’s a right cun-”

 

How?” Ganon repeated, raising his voice without changing his tone.

 

“Lyrium, you numb skull!” she barked back, holding her hand to her and hissing breath in through her teeth, “In a drink, I think. At Le Masque du Lion. How else can a Templar poison someone without poisoning themselves, you know?”

 

Ganon and Vivienne exchanged a glance.

 

“Do you-” he began to ask, but the elf interrupted again.

 

“Shut up, there’s one other thing. Bigger thing. Heh, thing. But Hawke is here too. Hiding- not well- but working with Fiona. The Templars are going to try and kill her too. She’s-”

 

“Where?” Ganon demanded.

 

“I was just going to tell you that if you would be patient for one bloody minute!” She spat out, and took a deep breath. “In the red light district, there’s a place called La Fleur Juteuse. She’s-”

 

Really?” Vivienne chuckled. She tossed her head Ganon’s way, her chin hovering by her shoulder as she looked at him to see if he was half as amused as she was.

 

“Subtle,” Ganon agreed.

 

“DIDN’T ANYONE EVER TEACH YOU CUNTS THAT INTERRUPTING PEOPLE IS RUDE?! MAKER’S BALLS.”

 

Vivienne threw her head back and laughed. Ganon couldn’t help the short-lived smile that sprung to his mouth.

 

“Stop laughing! You two are wasting so much time!”

 

Ganon said: “We’ll have to hurry then.” He lightly touched Vivienne’s elbow and rumbled: “I’ll go after Hawke.”

 

“Don’t die, dear,” Vivienne called over her shoulder, already on her way out of the courtyard they’d been meeting in.

 

“You too.”

 

“Hmph.”

 

***

 

It wasn’t hard to find the brothel in question. It was the only one in the red light district on fire. People were screaming, running out of it and every building on the same block. There was a pair of men in the front helping escort people out.

 

Ganon went around the back of the building, and saw another pair of men. No one was coming out this way, but as Ganon drew nearer he could hear the sounds of someone moving around in the fire.

 

He was impossible to miss, and indeed he had both men’s attention now. Their eyes went wide, and one pulled out a dagger. Ganon knocked it away easily and kicked the guy over. He hit the outside wall hard, fell, and slumped over. Just when Ganon was about to focus his attention on the second man, someone came crashing over the burning threshold.

 

“You’re going to be the death of me,” someone tried to laugh out around a cough.

 

A prostitute barged through the flames, cheeks streaked with tears, sobbing. Another person followed them out a second later- the one that had jested, apparently.

 

The assassin turned on his heel, quick as a cat, and caught the follower in an awkward hug.

 

“Umph,” the person said, and then they were slipping from the assassin’s grasp, down onto the cobblestones, blood pouring out of them.

 

Before the assassin had a chance to turn around, Ganon grabbed their head. He pulled it down and around, and introduced the killer’s skull to his knee. When his leg came back down, he hooked his foot around the other man’s ankle and brought him crashing to the ground.

 

Moaning, the perpetrator tried rolling on his side. Ganon leaned down and plucked up his right hand. Attached to the underside of his wrist was a hidden blade- already covered in blood. He casually slid it into its owner’s throat. Pulled it out just as slowly, watching the blood seep out the wound. And then turned to kneel beside the fallen figure which was, apparently, Hawke.

 

The woman’s hair was black and long, furled about her shoulders like a halo. Her blue eyes were open and staring, a laugh sealed onto her sooty mouth. She’d held a hand over her her left ribs, and when Ganon moved it he saw the tiniest of tears in her clothing, the smallest puncture in her flesh right between her ribs.

 

Looking only at her face, he pressed his hand to the wound and turned her on her side and shouted in a voice high with panic: “Help- somebody! Oh Maker, she’s been stabbed!

 

“So’ve you,” someone grunted from behind him, right before they cut his throat.

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Chapter 9

Vivienne, Val Royeaux

“I wouldn’t drink that if I were you, dear,” were her first words upon bursting into the cafe, because there was no better way to make an entrance. She raised her staff and blasted the mug out of Fiona’s hand with a precision spell, so she didn’t have the chance to poison herself.

 

That was what she would have done if Fiona wasn’t a dumb bitch who didn’t need to be taught a lesson. But she was.

 

So she watched as the Templars raised their goblets to their mouths and drained them, saw Fiona looking on on with apprehension. When the Templars set their steins back down on the table, only then did the mage lift her own to her lips. Her throat bulged with the first gulp.

 

And that was when Vivienne kicked in the door, staff already poised, its end already flaming. She blasted the Templars off the bench without so much as a blink, saying in her most motherly tone to her nemesis- no wait, that was far too strong a word for her, wasn’t it? ‘Inconvenience’ was a better word: “I wouldn’t drink any more of that, dear.”

 

With a quick glance the Templar’s way, she quickly went to Fiona (who was beginning to look a little pale by now) and unceremoniously jammed two fingers down her throat. The elf began to throw up immediately, and she was kind enough to be still enough so Vivienne could wipe the vomit from her fingers and onto her robes.

 

She turned her attention to the rest of the cafe, chin held high. “Somebody restrain the Lord Seeker and his men. They have just made an attempt on this woman’s life.”

 

They were still reeling from her surprise attack, but in Vivienne’s estimation that advantage would soon be lost. Since no one was particularly eager to jump forward and obey her (because they were idiots, of course), she began to prepare a freezing spell to keep them subdued a little longer, and-

 

never got to use it.

 

A horrific, unearthly shriek vibrated through Vivienne’s bones, and stole the breath right from her chest. Her concentration broken, the spell fizzled away.

 

Something tall and long and lanky and flesh-colored rose from the destruction her first spell had created. It arched its back to an impossible degree and wailed bloody murder again, and Fiona kept puking.

 

For just one second, everyone in the cafe could do nothing but stare. And then they too started screaming, and were clamboring over each other in an effort to escape.

 

Vivienne pushed Fiona under the table and, with her out of the way, cast a slowing spell on the demon, and then put a barrier on herself.

 

The demon stopped screeching, and took to laughing instead.

 

It was an even worse sound, a slimy chuckle which made her skin crawl.

 

“You know what it’s like to long to be something you are not.”

 

“Don’t deny it.”

 

It crawled towards her, unperturbed by her spell.

 

Vivienne let it.

 

“Maybe I fancy being you.”

 

She might have laughed at that, but she knew the demon was simply trying to get into her head. That was something which would not come to pass.

 

Her spell was fading fast. The demon was at the table now, climbing up the bench.

 

“All your power. . . it’s nothing but a parlor trick without her backing you.”

 

The demon knocked over plates with its bony knees and too-long-fingered hands. It shifted into a crouching position, a feline ready to pounce.

 

“And you have nothing without him. Soon, he’ll be gone. You’ll have no one, and you’ll be forgotten.”

 

Vivienne conjured her spirit blade, and stepped through the demon, through the table. On the other side, she brought her weapon down at the base of where the demon’s spine was supposed to be. It screamed, whirled around, and hit her with such force that all the air was knocked from her lungs- and again, when she hit the floor. Try as she might to keep her focus, she was too busy trying to get breathing again to keep her spells active. Somewhere along the way, she’d also lost her staff.

 

“Fool!”

 

The demon slithered down from the table all at once, trailing gobs of black blood.

 

Wheezing, Vivienne struggled to get up again. She tried to summon her blade, but it flickered in and out of existence in her hand.

 

“You’ll pay for that!” the demon snarled, rising up to its full height. Its body coiled, a strike impending-

 

-but someone nailed it in the head with a cup. Knocked off balance, the demon fell forward and over Vivienne.

 

Gasping, she jolted onto her back and raised her hand and even though she could only get her blade to appear for a moment, a moment was all she needed. The weapon pierced the demon’s chest, and when it disappeared a fountain of blood dropped on top of her- soon followed by the demon, now dead. Its limbs were curling in a way that reminded Vivienne of a dead spider, and that gave her all the energy she needed to wiggle out from underneath its corpse.

 

Vivienne tottered back onto her feet, one hand clutching her chest, trying to catch her breath. Every time she inhaled, she made this little whistling noise. Curious.

 

Fiona was standing by the table, a plate in a trembling hand.

 

“Vivienne, I thought-” she started.

 

“You haven’t been doing much of that lately, darling,” Vivienne scoffed weakly, rolling her eyes. She cleared her throat, neatly wiped her mouth with her wrist, and stood as tall and straight as she could in spite of being a bit battered. “Get my staff. We’re leaving this place.”

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Chapter 10

Ser Ganon de Jivres, Val Royeaux

“You will not have her!”

 

The assassin was thrown forward by a blast of magic, the dagger slipping from his hand before he could finish the stroke. It made no difference though: Ganon felt the spray of blood against his cheek. It would be enough.

 

He pressed his hands hard to his neck and lay back to keep all the blood from running out.

 

A woman rushed to Hawke’s side, crouching down, hands all over. Ganon could hear her breathing- short and hurried.

 

“No, no, no.”

 

His eyelids fluttered, blood running out between his fingers.

 

He’d seen the placement of that wound, the length of the blade that had given it. If the Templars were smart, they’d poisoned it as well. Hawke’s heart had been pierced, and although she might not have died immediately she most definitely was lost by now.

 

“She’s gone,” he croaked out, practically choking himself in an effort to put as much pressure on his cut as possible.

 

The woman whirled on him, her eyes going first to his injury and then his face.

 

“No!” There was a breathtaking fury in her gaze, as hot as the fire still raging behind them.

 

Because apparently she needed a reminder, he looked her in those fiery eyes and said: “I’m not.”

 

She grit her teeth and bared them at him briefly, and he could see her deciding what to do. But she too must have noticed how cold Hawke had gotten, and decided to help the person who was still alive for now.

 

With the point of her staff, she pushed his hands away and he felt the blood well up and rise out of him. The fingers of her off hand swept through the blood on his cheek before finding their way to his throat. When she leaned over him, a curtain of her curly hair tumbled off one shoulder.

 

He felt a sharp pain and an intense heat, made all the more unbearable by the way it was concentrated to one small area, and its suddenness. But it was over in an instant and she was off of him just as quickly, leaving him shocked and coughing on the ground. His calloused fingers gingerly felt at his throat.

 

She reached out with her staff again, placed it beneath his chin.

 

“Don’t,” she snapped.

 

He’d felt that the cut was closed, but still raw. Poking at it might reopen it, and she didn’t have to tell him twice to leave it be.

 

She turned away from him and back to Hawke, the edge in her shoulders dissolving away.

 

“What happened. . .” she wondered sadly.

 

Still on the ground, recovering from his coughing fit, working himself up into a sitting position, Ganon explained: “The Lord Seeker’s offer was a rouse. He knew about Hawke. Wanted to separate her from Fiona. Kill them both.”

 

“What?” she rounded on him, brows high and mouth set in a scowl.

 

He shook his head. “I was too late.”

 

She pushed her hair up out of her face, turned halfway away from him, covered her mouth, closed her eyes.

 

“We need to go,” Ganon grunted, rolling onto his feet, stooping to take up the fallen Champion.

 

“I left her,” the mage almost shouted, looking over her shoulder at him, expression shifting through a myriad of emotions. Her lips, pressed thin, nearly wobbled into a pout. Nearly.

 

Ganon eyed her a moment, this little elf framed in fire. “We need to go,” he said again, the Champion hanging dead in his arms.

 

The woman held his gaze, defiant. And then her eyes softened, fell to Hawke’s corpse. She nodded, and they made themselves scarce.

 

***

 

She brought him back to where the rebel mages lurked, and barked for them all to stand down when those that recognized him from earlier in the day saw who he had in his arms and tried to get hostile. She brought him to a far room, and Fiona and Vivienne were there, looking the worse for wear. A few other people were packed into the room as well.

 

Ganon carefully laid Hawke down on the table between them, a gesture met with a starved silence. Everyone stared blankly at the corpse, until Vivienne’s gaze shifted. Ganon saw her peek quickly at his throat, the way one of her eyebrows shrugged. Their eyes met, and she said: “Go fetch the Templars.”

 

***

 

He had no one to guide him to them, but still Ganon had no trouble in locating them. The city was in chaos: he’d already seen one source of it. It was only a matter of heading towards the other.

 

***

 

They’d gathered outside the cafe. Just stood around in a mute shock as Chevaliers came in from everywhere. Asking questions, and getting no answers. Ganon snorted at the sight of them.

 

One stopped him when he tried to move in closer, hand in the middle of his chest.

 

“You can’t go here,” the masked soldier told him.

 

“The Champion of Kirkwall managed to make it into your city without raising a single alarm, and has been murdered under your watch. Perhaps your efforts would be better spent investigating that, and evaluating the security around here,” Ganon replied blandly, staring him down through the eye holes in his ridiculous helm.

 

“What?” the Chevalier said dumbly.

 

“Maker knows who else has slipped through the cracks. At a time like this?” Ganon tilted his head, eyeing the metal face before him. He slowly took hold of the Chevalier’s wrist, and as soon as his fingers touched it the other man jerked away, the feather in his hat waving.

 

“The Champion of Kirkwall was here. . .? Dead?”

 

“Yes. The rebel mages have the body, and can tell you what happened. This is a Templar matter.” It wasn’t possible for him to stick his chest out any more than he already had, so he pointed to the scratched sigil on his chest plate. “Let me handle it.”

 

He didn’t wait for permission, and stepped around the Chevalier.

 

The Chevalier’s gauntlet clapped him on the arm. “We can’t just leave-”

 

“Didn’t tell you to,” Ganon said, shrugging out of his grip. “Told you to let me handle it.”

 

***

 

“How could we not know?”

 

“How could he have been a demon all along?”

 

“A demon took his form,” Ganon corrected, poking the demon’s body with the toe of his boot. “But I’m admittedly wondering the same thing.” He raised his brows and looked expectantly around at everyone.

 

“We were blind.”

 

“Stupid.”

 

A few defensive looks at that. Shamed faces at the realization it was true.

 

“I should have been paying more attention.”

 

“We all should have.”

 

“Separation just made us weaker.”

 

A few nods of agreement.

 

“He always made me feel uncomfortable, but I didn’t say anything about it.”

 

“Me too.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

They were finding it harder to look at each other. The Templars were puppies that had wet on the rug.

 

“I just. . .”

 

“Need to forgive yourself,” Ganon said, crossing his arms, staring at the floor. He raised his eyes to the last speaker, but not his head. “Every one of you.”

 

A few people recoiled at the idea, too disgusted with their mistake to entertain such a notion. Others looked to him, shock on their faces.

 

“How?” several people asked.

 

He simply answered: “Do better.” Unfolding his arms, Ganon inhaled suddenly and surveyed them all. “The people are looking to us to stop the Breach. Stop quarreling with the ones that can help us achieve that goal.”

 

No one said anything. Ganon looked at them all, never blinking, still as a statue.

 

“Anyone who wishes to fulfill their sworn duties can follow me,” he announced at last, boots grinding the broken glass underfoot to sand as he moved towards the door. “Leave this mess for the Chevaliers.”

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Chapter 11

Vivienne, Val Royeaux

“Oh, Hawke,” Fiona warbled, tears spilling down her cheeks. She covered her mouth and shook her head, looking positively pitiful in Vivienne’s eyes.

 

How disgusting.

 

“What was she doing here?” Vivienne demanded. She already had a very good idea as to why, but she wanted to hear the other woman say it.

 

And Fiona knew it. The look she gave Vivienne was tired, defeat etched in the lines around her eyes. Sighing and averting her gaze, Fiona answered slowly: “She wished to help us. I believed she could help make us safe. End this terrible, terrible war.” Ever so gentle, Fiona stroked the Champion’s black hair away from her face, lips trembling.

 

Vivienne took a deep breath to begin her lecture, but a sharp pain in her side caught her by surprise and made her falter. She tried to mask it by covering her arms and shifting her weight. Raising her brows in question, she said: “A lot of good that’s done you. Now she’s dead, and if anything her death will only serve to make matters worse. I applaud your ingenuity.”

 

Lost in her own world, it didn’t seem as though Vivienne’s words had any effect on Fiona. She shook her head, whispering: “It’s all my fault.”

 

“It is,” Vivienne agreed.

 

“I should have been more careful. I should have. . .”

 

“Oh, the list of what you should have done is endless. But it’s too late for that now, isn’t it? Hawke is dead. And many others, in case you’ve forgotten about them. It seems as though you have.”

 

Flinching away from Vivienne’s words, Fiona’s lips twitched briefly into a grimace.

 

I haven’t,” Vivienne said matter-of-factly.

 

“Nor have I, Vivienne!” flamed Fiona, slamming her palms down on the table between them.

 

“Haven’t you?” she questioned lightly, “In your futile effort to show Thedas that mages are not animals meant to be caged, every mage that has died under your care has only served to prove the necessity of the Circles.”

 

“The Circles were-”

 

“Corrupt. The Templars abusive. I do not disagree with you, Fiona,” Vivienne interrupted, sidling around the table to stand before the elf. “Changes are necessary. And you’ve single-handedly managed to set back reform for the mages by decades.”

 

“No, I-”

 

Vivienne laughed. “You tried to take the easy way out, you little fool of a woman. Look at the mess you’ve caused. Is this what you wanted?”

 

Vivienne was so close now there was hardly room to breathe between the two of them. Towering over Fiona, she arched a brow and stared her down, even though Fiona wouldn’t even look at her.

 

“I can still fix this,” Fiona insisted.

 

“Hah! Is that so? Not an hour ago, you were ready to hand you and yours over to a demon. Or had you forgotten that too? You claim you can fix this. If it weren’t for me, you would be dead- or worse. Twice over, in fact. No, Fiona.”

 

“What do you want me to say?!” Fiona lashed out, pushing Vivienne back. Realizing what she’d done, she took a few steps back to put some more space between herself and Vivienne. “‘You’re right!’ Is that what you want to hear?”

 

“I don’t need to hear it, darling, I know it. Tell me, how do you expect to protect these mages when you cannot even protect yourself?”

 

Fiona said nothing, only shook her head, mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

 

“Well?” Vivienne pressed.

 

In the end, all Fiona could muster was a strained croak.

 

“‘Aap’ is not sufficient, Fiona.”

 

“You’re right,” she sighed out, her breath choppy. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she bowed her head, and Vivienne watched her shoulders shake with her muffled sobs. “I’ve le-lead these people uh-astray. W-whatever r-r-right I had to-”

 

Vivienne had to clamp her lips shut, and watched the breakdown with utter indifference. When it became clear that she wasn’t going to finish, Vivienne concluded for her: “Died with Hawke.”

 

Fiona nodded weakly, her self-loathing readily apparent.

 

“I’ll do better.” Tapping a finger on the table, she said: “Mourn your dead. I will look into the Templar situation.”

 

***

 

“There’s not going to be any trouble between us, is there?” she asked politely, smiling venomously.

 

He had wandering eyes that would fix on the far corners of the room, droop slowly closed, and then find her again. Ser Ganon did all this without turning his head, and she found the effect to be rather amusing. He was as pleased with himself as a cat that had just caught a mouse.

 

The Templar shook his head a single time.

 

Vivienne’s gaze dropped to the wound on his neck, covered in dried blood. Pointing her chin at it, she wanted to know: “What happened?”

 

He tilted his head back a fraction and smiled. “Nothing important.”

 

She snorted and rolled her eyes at him.

 

“Have your men ready to leave by the day after tomorrow, dear. It would be unwise to remain here longer than necessary,” Vivienne instructed, turning on her heel.

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

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Epilogue

Someone forgotten, in Orlais

She’d given a start when she saw him sitting there, waiting. But the fear ended there, had melted into timid curiosity. One leg crossed over the other and with his hands in his lap, he gestured to the seat beside him and offered a lopsided smile. The woman eyed him cautiously, and neatly stepped forward to seat herself.

 

“My apologies for bargin’ ‘n on you like this,” he said.

 

“Why are you here?” she asked, not sounding like she was sure she wanted to know the answer. His smile twitched wider.

 

“I’m here t’offer you the Orlesian Empire.”

 

Her eyes narrowed, betraying her desire to believe him more than any disbelief. Tilting her head away from him and looking at the points of her knees beneath her gown, she waited for him to continue.

 

“It’s yours, if y’keep the two of ‘em squabbling over it,” he finished.

 

Her voice was hardly more than a whisper when she said: “I know that.”

He didn’t reply, simply studied her. The way she nervously smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress at her knee, how her eyes moved as though she was reading something written on the fabric. Lips pursing briefly, her head angled to the other shoulder.

 

“That’s it?” The question was light, asked to her joint. “Keep the war going?”

 

“That’s it,” he rumbled in reply, “We’ve a friend intrested in keeping Orlais nice an’ busy, so busy we’re t’make it.”

 

Folding his arms over his chest, he settled into the chair. Nodding his chin at her, he asked: “Any ideas?”

 

“Plenty.”

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