Where the Blood Lotus Blooms

It drives Cassandra wild with worry, but there are moments when I need to slip away from the encampment, usually in the evenings, weary, bruised and blood-spattered from trying to put an end to this nonsense between the mages and templars. It's a mess, yet we're caught in the middle. I wish I could grab the ringleaders by their lapels, shake them and shout some sense into them. Look, there's a great big hole in the sky! If we don't fix that, your pathetic differences won't mean a thing.

Then again, what does one lost Dalish elf know of the matters of shemlen? I'd told Keeper Deshanna we should stay out of their way, let them deal with problems as they see fit, yet she has a point. Invariably their conflicts spill over and our world grows that little bit smaller, more fraught. Deshanna sees herself as being progressive, to do what she can to look after Clan Lavellan's best interests. I may not always agree with her policies, but she has a point. Had a point.

Have they grieved for me? They must think me lost in the explosion that destroyed everyone else at the temple; unless word reaches them of this new supposed Herald of Andraste – one of the People, no less, who now serves the Inquisition. Not that it will. Clan Lavellan has tried to walk that tightrope between the world of the Dalish and that of the shemlen, yet now that I've seen all that I have, I realise their world is so narrow. My heart aches for friends, family, yet in such uncertain times, how can I send word? If I close my eyes, hold my breath, I can still hear the wind sough in the aravel sails, hear the soft snort of halla, or mothers singing to their babies.

Elgara vallas, da'len

Melava somniar

Mala tara aravas

Ara ma'desen melar

If I could, I'd run, I'd vanish between the trees if it weren't for the cursed Mark that ties me to this entire sorry mess. I lie when I tell them the Mark doesn't hurt. I don't want them to know the marrow-deep ache of this cursed magic that has rooted itself in my blood, my flesh. My weakness. Every time we near one of those rifts, the dull agony splinters through me, drags at me so that for that eternity before the rift closes, I fear I may be turned inside out and dissipated like that malignant green light.

I'm a tool, nothing more, a dull-edged weapon wielded by those with no care or understanding that I'm a person, not some shemlen hero hinted at in legends. That they seek my opinion on the way forward sometimes, now that makes me laugh. I've gone from First to prisoner to Herald, all in the space of weeks. Who am I really?

Just a Dalish girl in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Who has absolutely no recollection of what happened between her entering the Temple of Sacred Ashes and the aftermath, when she found herself in chains with an angry Seeker threatening her. I probe at the missing memories, like a crone would with her tongue at teeth long lost. Nothing. Absence. As if some fiend has wielded a blade and excised the moments most important to me.

That I'm the only survivor – outrageous.

That I remember nothing – ludicrous.

Suspicious.

Doubt gnaws at me constantly. What if I'm somehow responsible? All those hundreds of people dead. And it's my fault… My escape from the Fade seems like a dim, bad dream, that with each passing day grows less traumatic as I move further away from the event.

This is a new existence. I am resigned to it, though how we are to close that hole in the sky is beyond anyone's guess. My paltry understanding of magic does not provide any answers, save that it's somehow linked to this pulsing Mark on my hand. If I could be like the fox caught in the snare, who would go so far to chew off his own paw to be free again, I might just do that, save that I lack the courage to do so. Or the foolhardiness. But to be free of this constant, nagging ache...

So far I'm the only one who can close the smaller rifts that have popped up all over the place. I can't disagree with their reasoning that these should not be allowed to multiply and fill the world with the horrors that creep out of the Fade. I'm under obligation.

And there are evenings such as this, where the obligation is heavy, and I need to creep away, to lose myself among the trees and dream that I'm walking among the forested ravines in the northern Marches. That the resinous pine scent I inhale belongs to the trees back home, where the halla are like pale ghosts among the trunks and Mihren has a smile just for me.

I suppose he'll bond with another now that he thinks me dead.

That sorrow cuts deeply, somehow unreal because I've no visible proof.

In my wilder fancies, he'll be astride a hart, and ride into camp. I'll run to him, and he'll pull me up so that I can sit snug behind him. His long, white-blond hair will be free, with owl feathers tied to the end of the tiny braids at the side, and he'll smell of rivers and wild things that perch in trees. We'll ride far, far away from here, where there is no Breach in the sky, and no demons to plague us.

And if wishes were harts, then all of the People would ride.

I am here. A lone Dalish girl in a forest far, far away from home, a lost spirit halla pale between the trees. My once-long hair has been hacked away unevenly, and shaved at the back where a clumsy attempt was made to stitch a wound. I just haven't had a chance to do anything about my appearance.

I lost the owl foot pendant Mihren gave me some time during the chaos at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I am rootless, wandering, and wondering.

Cassandra will send someone to find me. Last night it was that dwarf, Lace, who's very kind. She always tries to make me laugh, tells me about her family and growing up in Ferelden. The night before they had me followed by one of the Inquisition scouts. He was easy enough to evade.

Tonight I make it as far as the lake's lapping waters, the waterfall at my back. A thick pall of smoke has stained the sunset a ruddy bronze. Blood is caked under my nails, and I scrub with sand until my fingertips feel raw. Yet there is always another stubborn stain, and whether it is real or imagined, I can't tell.

Eventually I sit with my bare feet dipped in the water, the balmy air tickling my skin. There's a pressure in my chest that builds, sticks in my throat and prickles against my eyes. What I'd do to see a familiar face, a caress, a tender whisper. How long must I endure among these bare-faced shemlen?

This evening the lake is placid, the water a mirror that reflects the sky. Blood lotus slowly unfurl, their scent honey-sweet yet underpinned with a rankness that makes me think of death. That which I fear I'll never forget, of blood clotting in the sun, the buzz of flies and the overwhelming miasma of spilled bowels. All that I'd never dreamt I'd experience in the short time since I've left my clan.

He's quiet, I'll give him that. Solas, the other mage in our party. So they sent him to check on me. How long he's been watching me, I can't be certain, because I suspect he moved ever so slightly to inform me of his presence, that he may have been standing a little longer than that. Aware.

He waits for me to acknowledge him, but I won't. Two can play the game. I am not prey to be stalked, a tender halla to the wolf.

The rest had assumed that he and I would find a rapport; yet I've found myself unaccountably on edge around him. It's a hundred and one small things. He's not one of the People yet he's clearly not a bumbling city elf either. His skill in magic use far exceeds mine yet and the few times I've brushed up against his power with mine, I've shied back. I can best only describe it like standing next to a deep, deep well and looking in to see the stars reflected in the cold disc of water far further down than expected. There is no explanation that will suffice in words.

Yet he sat with me those first few days that I was brought from the ruins, when my Mark was still volatile. It was Solas who cared for me, though I remember it not.

And this thought, that he has seen me at my most vulnerable, is a cause for dismay. That perhaps he was the one who wiped my fevered brow with a damp cloth, whispered quiet words of tranquillity to calm me while I raved. Or so I could imagine. I don't want to think that I was ever vulnerable to any, and yet this simple truth remains.

He is not a handsome man, yet there is something arresting about him. Why he painstakingly insists on shaving his head each morning is beyond me. A ritual of penitence, perhaps? He is tall, broad of the shoulder for an elf, though I dare not admit to any that I look.

And he won't go away.

"I know you're there, Solas," I say at last, as the first of the stars prickle against the cobalt sky.

The grasses barely whisper, as he approaches. "Ma falon." He sits not far from me, leaning against an old shem carving toppled from some long-ago monument.

I glance at his feet then resume my vigil across the lake, where small ripples spread out from the lips of fish lazy, just beneath the surface.

"I suppose Cassandra sent you," I say apropos of nothing.

"If it's easier for you to believe that I exist at the beck and call of others, that is fine by me."

"What, no lecture about safety, about the fact that these woods are no doubt crawling with mages and templars?" I can't help but allow an edge of wry annoyance into my voice. "I had that yesterday, from our illustrious Seeker once the lead scout brought me back, and I'm certain to have it again this eve once I decide to return."

"You're an intelligent woman, even if you've left your staff out of reach behind you. I'm sure by now Cassandra is aware that you're not harmless."

I allow my gaze to meet his. There's the slightest curl of amusement to his lips, as if he's beholden to some secret amusement he's yet to share with me.

Just like that, I feel as if I'm sixteen years old again, pouting at Keeper Deshanna when she disapproves of some wild notion I've entertained. He has that same look about him, indulgent, as if he's seen it all before, and I'm just some youngster.

"It's stupid, and I know better." I rise, fish a handful of pebbles from the silty shallows. The stones are slippery in my grasp, and I turn the roundest one until it fits smoothly in my right hand.

I haven't skipped stones since I was a youngster, but the muscle memory is there. It all boils down the flick of a wrist, a particular angle for the stone to bounce against the surface of the water with enough momentum to leap. Mihren often managed eight or nine bounces. I've never managed beyond four.

My first stone sinks below the water with a wet plop.

Unaccountably my hands shake as I ready the second. I turn to the elf. "Must you watch me?"

There's that faint smile again. He raises a hand from his staff, waves at the lake. "Go on. I'm not here. I'm just an illusion. A dream."

"As if." I snort, turn around, yet his scrutiny burns into me nonetheless.

I draw breath, hold, evaluate the distance, tense and release. The pebble flies, and for a moment I'm tempted to think it will follow its predecessor but now.

One… Two… Three

The water gobbles up the stone.

"You make it look easy," Solas says as he rises.

"What, you've not skipped stones before?" I ask, incredulous.

He peers at the stones in the shallows, reaches down. The stone he's selected is hopelessly the wrong shape.

"Here, have one of mine," I say and offer him the roundest of my pebbles. "They should either be round or very flat, and you need to put a spin into your wrist when you toss."

Somehow, he manages to arch a single brow – a gesture I've never managed myself. "Very well."

Our fingers brush for an instant, and I'm tempted to claim that there was the slightest spark, but that might just be my imagination.

He peers across the lake, as if staring at something no one else can see, and I'm left awkward, worrying that this is just a foolish venture. I mean, really, standing here with some strange, older elf. He must think I'm childish, idiotic for wandering off when I really shouldn't and in a fit of pique like the ungrateful wretch I know I am.

Then he whips his arm back. The stone skips six times then sinks below the ripples.

When he turns to smile at me, the years of care drop from his features and I see the young man who used to hide behind that solemn mask. "I forget how much fun this is, lethallan."

I don't think I've ever seen him smile like this before.