(Later chapters aren't nearly as dark as this one. Ok, maybe SOME of them. There are fluff along the way. BTW, the way Ellyn and Anders act toward each other from the very first convo sets the tone for the REST of their relationship. Nope, not healthy. If you're interested in the psychology behind their both messed up minds, look up "Codependency and narcissism".)

1

Ellyn was tired.

She had been running for days on her bare feet, hardly eating anything. She missed her mother.

The straw she was sleeping on this night was moist; a storm recently passed and the smell of summer hung in the air. There were no dogs in this small village, and she missed the warmth of one. She shivered in the darkness.

Shh...don't be afraid. I'll protect you.

Did she imagine the voice? It sounded like mother. It sounded like all mothers. It was love and protection, food and comfort. It was milk from the breast, sweet and coying. The straw beneath her suddenly felt warm, soft, as in an embrace. An infinite embrace that extended to the edge of her dreams.

Good night, sweetheart.

Ellyn slept.

2
The barn was a haven of sorts for village boys. Sure, there was always work, but there were places in a barn to hide in, a loft to share with the other boys when there was liquor to be had.

Jones was one of these boys. Today was a good day; his slingshot won him a crow, fat and full of feathers. The feathers he stripped for his mother. It gave him an excuse to hunt a bird and be alone with it.

On this particular morning, he chose a dagger he made himself. It was a pitiable and small thing with a glass blade he polished himself, wrapped in dirty linen. It was sharp enough and hard enough to cut through bone. Jones approached his usual spot, a corner of the barn where the sunlight rarely visited to reveal the dark rusty stains beneath the rough strewn hay.

When he was done it was almost breakfast time. He had no need of it, but his mother might get suspicious if he did not make a show of eating. Jones reached out to his right to grab a handful of straw for wiping his hands, and it touched something soft. Silky. Stringy. Not unlike hay, but...alive.

Ellyn yawned. She stretched. When she opened her eyes, she saw a boy. She thought it might have been a boy - it was definitely the right shape and height for a boy - but the look in its eyes suggested those of a wolf. A beast. A monster with bloody dribble running down its chin. Little girl reflexes kicked in and she began to scream.

The form that was Jones rushed forward with his dagger, blade downwards. He wanted the screaming to stop. There was a throbbing in his head, a hunger that only ceased when fresh blood filled his mouth. Her scream had taken away his only solace.

Outside, the villagers gathered. They knew only that Jones was missing and there was screaming in the barn. In a town as small as theirs, a lost child was everyone's business. Jones' mother, missus Ellis, stood frozen in place by the front of the barn. A rivulet of blood flowed from the straw peeking through the gap under the doors and pooled beneath her feet.

3

Anders cradled his pillow and sucked his thumb while he slept. Stupid thing to do, he knew. Childish. He was twelve. Twelve year old boys - men - did not do such things, but right now, he did not care. He missed his mother, and her scent was no longer carried in his pillow. It smelt of dog, wet straw, mildew and vomit. He really wanted to cry, but sucking his thumb while burying his face in his pillow was one of the few private things he was able to do. If he was to cry, he did not want to do it in front of the templars.

Templars. They were afraid of him, he knew. Most mages were taken younger than him, and though he did not know any spells, he was a natural elementalist. He called fire and lightning at will. The only way they were able to hold him was to drain his mana constantly. As a side effect, he was tired and wanted to sleep all day.

Instead he was made to walk all day. He did. So at camp all he could do was suck on his thumb and breathe into his pillow.

"Maybe we should hire a horse at the next village we come across," Ser Clara poured some water into a clay mug. Boiled twice, and still jittery. She gave Anders a nudge with her gauntlet, but he only shook his head without looking at what she was offering.

"Whatever for?" asked Ser Kevan. Unlike Clara, he had been a templar for over two decades. He knew what mages were capable of. Women. He thought. Women should never be allowed on these collection trips.

"The boy is completely exhausted. He can hardly walk. Give him another day and we'd probably have to carry him. Do you want to carry him?"

"I'm not carrying anyone. He will walk." Ser Kevan was resolute.

"Then let's at least get a proper meal at the next village and resupply. We're almost out of food," Clara changed stance and appealed to his practical side, this time. "If you're going to insist that he walks, it's going to take an extra week to get to the circle."

Decent food. That would be an improvement, thought Anders, half in a dream.

4

Anders cowered behind Ser Clara and shivered. It was a warm day. The scent of burning flesh assaulted his nostrils. He fell on his knees and retched.

"Thank you, Anders. I swear I will see you to safety after this." When they reached the gates, Ser Kevan went ahead to ask about an inn, only to be met with a shovel across the helmet. Two templars were no match for an entire town of fanatics. Anders reacted by instinct. He raised his hands and called down the elements.

Now all around them there were only blackened corpses. Ser Kevan among them, caught in the blast.

Clara held out her hand and nudged Anders forward with her. With her other hand she held her sword out at chest level. Deep inside she knew she was useless compared to the boy beside her, but her armour and stature permitted her only to protect. To protect anyone smaller than her.

To shield and to protect and love. Yes.

Clara shook her head. Did she think that? The Order warned against blood mages and how they would bore into your head with errant thoughts, but these felt like her own. She was protecting a little boy, wasn't she? They must have been her own.

Protect the pure. Love. Be a shield for the chosen one.

They followed the path together into the village. Something called to them; she wasn't sure what it was, but it was irresistible. As long as they moved forward and followed it, they remained undeterred.

They mean to keep her locked away here. You must bring her where she will be safe. She is the Maker's Chosen.

The path led them to a barn. There was a chantry sister in front of it, leading a group of villagers in prayer. A chantry sister, here? There wasn't a chantry around for miles. There were wandering sisters that went from village to village, a source of spiritual support in remote outposts such as these, and she must have been one of them.

In one quick movement, Ser Clara ran her through. Anders blinked in surprise. Templars did not make a habit of randomly killing people, especially ones in chantry robes. The villagers rushed toward them, but they were unarmed and no match for a trained templar. Clara called forth a blast of energy that sundered their minds. Strange; it was never this powerful before.

The doors to the barn were ajar.

An abomination laid dead on the floor. Twisted, horrid thing. Dried blood could be seen through patches of the floor not covered by hay. Broken glass crunched under Clara's boots. She made a gesture to stop Anders from walking forward with his thin leather soles.

His first memory of Ellyn was of a glowing spirit in the barn loft. Later he recalled nothing out of the ordinary about her. Simply a little girl sitting in a white shift, bathed in dusty sunlight. Her curly blond hair was matted, messy, tangled with straw. Her arms wrapped around her knees with her chin atop of them, she was everything she appeared to be: a scared little girl hiding in a barn loft.

Clara dropped down to one knee, planting her sword into the ground and bowed her head in prayer.

She clearly saw something he did not. He also saw something she did not. He saw the fade. The world beyond the veil. It should not be here. It shimmered and folded around the little girl. He did not know much about magic, but he knew he could not fight this. Anders resorted to the one thing that always protected and saved him.

"Hello? Are you alright up there?" He threw on the brightest smile he was able to muster, considering the carnage around him. "My name is Anders. What's yours?"

"I'm...Ellyn." The vision in the loft was now just a girl. Tears flowed down her cheeks and fell from her chin. "There was a monster, and I...I...I'm so sorry."

The spell was broken. Ser Clara raised her head. "Ellyn Amell?"

"Ellyn Amell, Eight River Street, palace district." Ellyn recited in the way that little girls did when they got lost.

"Ellyn, why are you alone? What happened to your guardians?" The Amell child was entrusted to two of her friends. They left on the same day she did with Ser Kevan, and was due to arrive at the Circle at least two weeks ago. She tightened her grip on the sword and readied her mind should she need to cut this mage down.

"There was howling...and blood everywhere," Ellyn was crying again. "The mama told me to run."

Clara sheathed her sword. "Come down and climb onto my shoulders, child. There's broken glass all over the floor."

5

Ser Clara was made a full member of the Templar order only a year ago, and this was her first "collection" mission. With Ser Kevan dead, she was alone, with two mage children. This was unprecedented.

Worse yet, she did not remember how she came into possession of the child named Ellyn. Or how Ser Kevan died. There was an attack. A fire, maybe. Her sword was bloodied. More than that she was uncertain.

She felt an overwhelming need to protect these children. This was not new. She felt a need to protect Anders when the Amell child was not yet with them.

All she was certain of was how easy their journey became when Ellyn joined them. Her armour weigh nearly nothing. When they were hungry, food appeared out of nowhere. Yesterday a deer walked into their camp and waited to be slaughtered. Today, it was a rabbit, and they didn't even need meat.

Anders was laughing a lot. Clara was glad of that too. Anders was miserable when they took him away from his little hovel of a home. Clara knew that where he was bound was cleaner, safer, and he will be surrounded by new friends; for every mage child that was lucky enough to end up in the circle, there were countless ones who were killed out of fear of the curse in them, but all Anders knew was the immediate pain of being torn away from his mother.

Ellyn was unusual in the sense that she did not do any magic, even when there was danger. Perhaps that was inaccurate; she did not do any obvious magic. She extruded an aura of calmness that affected all around her, and that extended to the trees and animals. A silent calm followed them. She even lifted the sorrow from Anders' heart.

"Will you be my new mama?" Ellyn asked one night, out of the blue.

"I can't be your new mama, little one. I'm a Templar." Clara had, at one point, wanted to marry and have children; but what one wanted and what life offered were often completely different things. "You will be apprenticed to an enchanter, Ellyn. I can't promise that the enchanter will be a woman, but they will guide you and take good care of you."

"I can be your new brother, if you like." Anders offered.

"I know." Ellyn giggled and threw her arms around him. "I like you. You're nice."

Unlike Clara, Anders did not forget the scene in the village. He had no inkling of what Ellyn was. He only knew that if he wanted to live, and see this child locked up in the Circle tower, he needed to stay on her good side. For the first two days after they left the barn where they found Ellyn, Anders wanted to go home. To his astonishment, he realized that they were heading home, away from the tower.

When he questioned Ser Clara, she told him that he was ridiculous and of course they were going in the right direction. Did he think she was stupid?

When he turned to Ellyn for support, he saw only her eerie bright smile.

There was no way that he wanted this girl - this thing that looked like a girl - anywhere near his family. He made sure he wanted to go to the circle tower from that moment on. The next day, he found them heading towards Lake Calenhad instead of away from it.

Ellyn seemed oblivious to all this. She held his hand, laughed at his jokes, ran circles around trees, and picked flowers.

6

They arrived in the circle together and was promptly separated. As far as the templars were concerned, strong bonds between untrained mages only led to trouble. Anders was apprenticed to an elementalist mage, while Ellyn was kept under observation for the first year.

No one knew what she was. Even the First Enchanter Irving was puzzled. They knew she was a spirit healer, but that was only the surface of her powers. She was able to not only cure wounds physically, but mentally as well. She reached into a mind and 'picked out the bad bits' as she described it. It also meant she was able to make thralls of anyone near her, making her one of the most dangerous mages the circle ever encountered.

In other words, Ellyn had the powers of a blood mage without using anyone's blood. When the First Enchanter brought this up with the Knight Commander, he was appalled.

"This six year old is practicing blood magic?"

"No. She's not 'practicing' anything. She simply is. She is powerful, and has the ability to influence an entire army if need be, but she does so without blood."

"That sounds dangerous." Knight Commander Greagoir was not convinced.

"No more dangerous than the lad who came in with her at the same time. He threw fireballs. Without any training."

"And this girl does what, control minds? She can turn this entire tower's templar force against itself. How does she do this, exactly?"

"Well, spirit healers deal with a benevolent spirit in the fade and -"

"-a demon, you mean-"

"No, no. Spirit healers are generally much older. They have learned to distinguish between the demons and the good spirits, which are the Maker's first children." Irving explained, in a tone as one would to a child. "There are cases where a child is chosen by a spirit. Usually they're not very powerful and are only capable of basic healing spells without proper training. The one who chose Ellyn just happened to be old, experienced, and very, very powerful."

"So, what, this spirit teaches the child to cast healing spells, like a demon teaches blood magic to a blood mage?"

"No. She calls the spirit when she needs to cast a healing spell, and the spirit does so on her behalf."

"This is sounding better by the minute." Greagoir said in an exasperated tone. "It sounds like she becomes possessed every time she uses magic."

"Well, that is exactly how spirit healers work. Powerful ones like her are very rare." Irving insisted. He knew where this was going. Greagoir intended to have the girl killed before she became a problem. What he did not know was that Ellyn was already a problem. No one in this Circle - including himself - was able to approach Ellyn with ill intent. In other words, she could not be killed by anyone here. "Imagine this: if the Orlesians were to invade again, Ellyn can wave her hand and heal an entire army of men. Men near death will rise and keep fighting."

It will be wise to treat her well. Protect her. She is valuable to all of us.

Greagoir nodded. What Irving said made sense. The Circle of Magi belonged to the Chantry, and the Chantry was neutral, but he himself was Ferelden and had no illusions that this strenuous peace will last.

Outside, little Ellyn Amell passed by the First Enchanter's room as she wandered the halls to lull herself to sleep.